Percy Wetmore

''The Green Mile'' is a 1999 American epic fantasy drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and based on the 1996 novel by Stephen King. It stars Tom Hanks as a death row prison guard during the Great Depression who witnesses supernatural events following the arrival of an enigmatic convict (Michael Clarke Duncan) at his facility.

''The Green Mile'' premiered in the United States on December 10, 1999, to positive reviews from critics, who praised Darabont's direction and writing, emotional weight, and performances (particularly for Hanks and Duncan), although its length received some criticism. It was a commercial success, grossing $286.8 million from its $60 million budget, and was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Duncan, Best Sound, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Plot

In 1935, corrections officer Paul Edgecomb oversees "The Green Mile," the death row section of Cold Mountain Penitentiary, alongside officers Brutus Howell, Dean Stanton, Harry Terwilliger, and the sadistic and despised Percy Wetmore, whose connections to the state governor shield him from punishment. The guards supervise three prisoners: Eduard Delacroix, who is frequently tormented by Percy; the violent and erratic William Wharton; and John Coffey, a hulking yet gentle and simple-minded African-American man convicted of raping and murdering two white girls after being found distraught while cradling their bodies. John asserts that he tried to "take it back" but could not.

Paul grows doubtful that John committed the crimes and soon discovers he possesses miraculous healing abilities. John cures Paul's crippling bladder infection by absorbing it into himself before expelling it as flies, explaining that he "took it back". After Percy crushes Eduard's pet mouse, Mr. Jingles, John urgently requests the body and resurrects it, further convincing the guards of his powers.

Fed up with Percy's behavior, the officers let him officiate an execution on the condition that he takes a job at Briar Ridge insane asylum afterward. At Eduard's execution, Percy deliberately neglects to wet the sponge meant to conduct electricity, causing Eduard a violent and agonizing death. John senses and is overwhelmed by Eduard's pain, causing him to inadvertently transfer some of his power into Mr. Jingles, who scurries away.

Paul convinces the guards—excluding Percy—to take John to heal the warden's good-hearted, terminally ill wife, Melinda. They restrain Percy and confine him to a padded cell as punishment for torturing Eduard before sneaking John out of the prison to the warden's home. John absorbs Melinda's illness, restoring her health, but is left in severe pain from containing it within him. The guards return John to his cell, and release Percy, but John grabs hold of and transfers the illness into Percy, who, in a possessed state, shoots Wharton dead. Paul demands answers, leading John to transfer into him Wharton's memories, revealing him to be responsible for the crimes of which John was convicted. Percy is left catatonic and later committed to Briar Ridge.

Though convinced of John's innocence, Paul cannot prove it or stop the execution. He offers John a chance to escape, believing it unacceptable to destroy what he considers to be a true miracle. John, however, exhausted by the pain he endures from constantly sensing the suffering and ugliness that people inflict on each other, chooses to die. His last request is to watch a movie, never having seen one before, so he, Paul, and the other officers watch ''Top Hat''.

On the day of his execution, John tells the guards of his last dream, in which he and the two girls are safe and happy. In the electrocution chamber, John is saddened by the hatred he feels from those in attendance who still believe him to be guilty. Brutus encourages him to focus on the guards, who do not fear or hate him. John requests not to wear a hood, because he is afraid of the dark. Paul briefly takes John's hand before the tearful officers reluctantly carry out the execution.

In 1999, a 108-year-old Paul watches ''Top Hat'' and, reminded of the events, recounts John's story to his friend Elaine, revealing it was the last execution he and Brutus performed before transferring to juvenile corrections. Skeptical, Elaine is stunned when Paul reveals Mr. Jingles, still alive and healthy. While she calls Paul's longevity a miracle, he sees having outlived all his loved ones as a divine punishment for allowing John to die. After Elaine's funeral, Paul wonders how much longer he will live if a mouse's life could be so significantly extended, lamenting, "Sometimes, the Green Mile seems so long."

Cast

Themes

Frank Darabont said that John Coffey "represents those extraordinary, visionary souls that come along in human history from time to time, that the rest of us feel compelled to exterminate. I've always found it extraordinary that we just can't seem to accept the message of peace and love. It's not such a crackpot notion. But whenever somebody comes along who embodies that notion, we have to nail him to a cross, we have to shoot him, we have to kill him."

Michael Clarke Duncan said, "John Coffey stands for everything that is right in the world. If you see an old lady crossing the street, and you go over to help her, to me, that's John Coffey. John Coffey stands for everything that is good about the earth."

James Cromwell said, "We continue, which is what John Coffey says, 'They kill each other with their love.' We continue to kill each other because we fail to recognize that all of us have the demon, and that the only way to deal with that demon is with love, and with compassion, and with understanding."

Production

Development

Frank Darabont adapted Stephen King's novel, ''The Green Mile'', into a screenplay in under eight weeks.

The film was shot at Warner Hollywood Studios, West Hollywood, California; and on location in Shelbyville, Tennessee; Blowing Rock, North Carolina; and the old Tennessee State Prison. The interior sets were custom built by production designer Terence Marsh. "We tried to give our set a sense of space. A sense of history. And a sense of mystery, in a way. We chose the elongated cathedral-like windows because there is a very mystical element in this movie, a supernatural element ..It presented us with lots of opportunities", he said. The electric chair was also a bespoke design, and was inspired by real prisons which have the device.

The film title refers to the stretch of green floor that the hallway inmates walk down before they are to be executed by electric chair.

Casting

Tom Hanks and Darabont met at an Academy Award luncheon in 1994. Stephen King stated he envisioned Hanks in the role and was happy when Darabont mentioned his name. Hanks was originally supposed to play elderly Paul Edgecomb as well, but the makeup tests did not make him look credible enough to be an elderly man. Because of this, Dabbs Greer was hired to play the older Edgecomb, his final film role.

Michael Clarke Duncan credited his casting to Bruce Willis, with whom he had worked on the film ''Armageddon'' one year earlier. According to Duncan, Willis introduced him to Darabont after hearing of the open call for John Coffey. Basketball player Shaquille O'Neal has stated he turned down the role of John Coffey. Josh Brolin was considered for the role of William "Wild Bill" Wharton.

David Morse had not heard about the script until he was offered the role. He stated he was in tears by the end of it. Darabont wanted James Cromwell from the start, and after he read the script, Cromwell was moved and agreed.

Music

The official film soundtrack, ''Music from the Motion Picture The Green Mile'', was released on December 19, 1999, by Warner Sunset Records. It contains 37 tracks, primarily instrumental tracks from the film score by Thomas Newman. It also contains four vocal tracks: "Cheek to Cheek" by Fred Astaire, " I Can't Give You Anything but Love, Baby" by Billie Holiday, " Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?" by Gene Austin, and " Charmaine" by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.

Release

Box office

In the United States and Canada, ''The Green Mile'' opened on December 10, 1999, in 2,875 theaters and grossed $18 million in its opening weekend, placing second at the box office, just behind ''Toy Story 2'' with $18.2 million, although Warner Bros. insisted that ''The Green Mile'' was the number one film. However, it did finish first for the week with $23.9 million compared to ''Toy Story 2'' $22.1 million. It remained at number two in its second weekend and in the top 10 for 10 weeks but never reached number one for the weekend. It went on to gross $136.8 million in the United States and Canada and $150 million in other territories, bringing a worldwide total of $286.8 million, against its production budget of $60 million. It was the second highest-grosser in Japan for the year with a gross of $55.3 million.

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes ''The Green Mile'' holds an approval rating of 79% based on 136 reviews with an average rating of 6.80/10. The website's critics consensus states, "Though ''The Green Mile'' is long, critics say it's an absorbing, emotionally powerful experience." At Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four stars, writing, "The film is a shade over three hours long. I appreciated the extra time, which allows us to feel the passage of prison months and years ... it tells a story with beginning, middle, end, vivid characters, humor, outrage and emotional release". Writing for ''Entertainment Weekly'', Lisa Schwarzbaum also took note of the film's length, but praised Tom Hanks' "superior" performance and Darabont's direction. "Darabont's style of picture making is well matched to King-size yarn spinning. The director isn't afraid to let big emotions and grand gestures linger", she said.

''San Francisco Chronicle'''s Edward Guthmann thought the cinematography was "handsome", and the music was "florid and melodramatic". He added, "Darabont is such a committed filmmaker, and believes so earnestly and intensely in the stories he puts onscreen". Desson Thomson of ''The Washington Post'' called the storytelling "brilliant", and said "From its deceptively easygoing beginning to the heart-wrenching finale, ''The Green Mile'' keeps you wonderfully high above the cynical ground."

Some critics had a less positive response. Kirk Honeycutt of ''The Hollywood Reporter'' opined, "By inflating the simple story with a languorous pace, pregnant pauses, long reaction shots and an infinitely slow metabolism, Darabont has burdened his movie version with more self-importance than it can possibly sustain." While complimenting the production design and soundtrack, the critic from '' Timeout'' magazine thought some scenes were tiresome and the film "suffers from a surfeit of plot threads and characters".

Writing for the BBC, Clark Collis criticized the film's length and pacing. David Ansen of ''Newsweek'' thought ''The Green Mile'' was weaker than Darabont's previous film, ''The Shawshank Redemption'' (1994). He stated, ''The Green Mile'' is a "lumbering, self-important three-hour melodrama that defies credibility at every turn".

Stephen King praised the film adaptation, although he felt the film was a little "soft" in some ways. He added, "I like to joke with Frank that his movie was really the first R-rated Hallmark Hall of Fame production. For a story that is set on death row, it has a really feel-good, praise-the-human condition sentiment to it. I certainly don’t have a problem with that because I am a sentimentalist at heart."

African American

The depiction of Coffey was considered among some in the African American community to be "somewhat of an embarrassment", even among those who enjoyed the film. Such viewers saw Coffey to be too complacent in being seen as "one more" black rapist and as having a shallow backstory.

Accolades

Home media

The film was released on VHS and DVD on June 13, 2000 by Warner Home Video. The film earned $17.45 million in combined DVD and VHS rental revenue by June 18, 2000.

The Blu-ray was released on December 1, 2009. A remastered 4K UHD Blu-ray was released on February 22, 2022.

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Green Mile
1990s American films
1990s English-language films
1990s prison drama films
1999 crime drama films
1999 films
1990s fantasy drama films
American crime drama films
American fantasy drama films
American prison drama films
Castle Rock Entertainment films
English-language crime drama films
Films about capital punishment
Films about mice and rats
Films about miscarriage of justice
Films about old age
Films about racism in the United States
Films about rape in the United States
Films based on works by Stephen King
Films directed by Frank Darabont
Films produced by David Valdes
Films scored by Thomas Newman
Films set in 1935
Films set in 1999
Films set in Louisiana
Films set in prison
Films shot in California
Films shot in North Carolina
Films shot in Tennessee
Films with screenplays by Frank Darabont
Great Depression films
Magic realism films
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films
Saturn Award–winning films
Supernatural drama films
Universal Pictures films
United International Pictures films
Warner Bros. films