The Shawshank Redemption

Shawshank Redemption is about a past era and filmed to look like it came out of the era, but it isn't a period piece. A period piece would mean the film was about a historical event or era. The Shawshank Redemption is just a prison drama so instead it's about our period mind-set. Shawshank could be not be told today in our current prison system, but our idea of the past and its idyllic wonders make Shawshank Redemption perfect fodder for sentimental enthusiasts. At a basic level, we look to movies to turn an insane world into very sane moral lessons. It's escapism. The proliferation of violence everywhere makes it impossible for a realistic movie about murder and prison to look this wholesome so movies continually go back to different time periods to tell something as basic as a drama. The Shawshank Redemption isn't challenging or real. Even if it was made in 1940 it would be laughed off by people who knew better. So if Shawshank is too unrealistic for today then how is yesterday suddenly acceptable? I can accept Shawshank Redemption as a light work, but I don't understand the high praise. No part of the movie deserves it. Numerous films in the 1930s and 40s looked and sounded like the Shawshank Redemption. A lot of them were even better, but our tendency to forget makes Shawshank Redemption today look both good and realistic. Someone can like an old film or a film set in a previous lifetime and be comforted that something that may only just have been cliche is really genuine because the movie exists in our idea of the past. The Shawshank Redemption falls into that category.