Shawshank Redemption

 Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 prison drama film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.  The latter was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, but lost to Tom Hanks in Forest Gump.

The film tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Robbins), who is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murders of his wife and her lover, despite his innocence. Over the following two decades, he befriends a fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis "Red" Redding (Freeman), and becomes instrumental in a money laundering operation led by the prison warden.  Andy eventually escapes the prison with the help of Rita Hayworth and Raquel Welch.

After the escape, the film shows a scene I found very interesting.  Red (in prison for murder) goes up in front of a Parole Hearing Board.

• Parole Hearings Man: Ellis Boyd Redding (Red), your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?
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• Red: Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means.
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• Parole Hearings Man: Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society...
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• Red: I know what you think it means, sonny. To me, it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?
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• Parole Hearings Man: Well, are you?
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• Red: There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit.

His parole was approved.

I sometimes wish I could talk some sense to myself when I was a young person.  I didn't commit a crime, but I made some stupid decisions that I thought at the time were correct.  As Red said, that version of me is long gone and this older version is all that's left.