The opera scene was a little overly dramatic

I thought it was very overly dramatic as well. A lot of others at this message board found it very powerful, and that's fine, because the scene itself is necessary as it illustrates that Andrew is running out of time and even if he does win the case, his future is still grim. But I would prefer something less theatrical, along the lines of what the rest of the movie is like.

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I found the rest of the film had hit the right dramatic notes but the opera scene was really over the top. Denzel with mouth agape and the lights going dim, etc. Just didn't feel natural compared to the rest of the story. I think anyone would feel sad for Andy at this stage without the need to push the envelope.

In real life, the attorney would have walked over to the stereo, turned it off, and told his client "You can listen to that later; we've got a case to review for your appearance tomorrow." No lawyer would tolerate such childish, irresponsible self-indulgence.

While Tom Hanks' overwrought performance describing the aria was going on, I could not help but think of the movie Pretty Woman (1990). In that movie, Julia Roberts plays a streetwalker who ends up being the girlfriend of a corporate raider played by Richard Gere. He takes her to see an opera, presumably the first one she has ever been to, and we see her crying during a particularly moving scene. In other words, in both movies, a major character practices a form of sex that many regard as deviant and likely to spread disease. And in both movies, these characters are deeply moved by an opera, as if to say they have such great souls that they can appreciate art in its highest form with a passion that we philistines, who don't care for opera, can scarcely imagine. It just wouldn’t have been the same if Beckett had been listening to N.W.A., explaining to his lawyer with great emotion, “And here is the part where he gets his sawed off shotgun and they have to haul off all the bodies.”

Agree, it should have either been much shorter or cut.

I thought that at first but then I was thinking about Andy knowing his time will come to an end soon and that the pleasure he feels in that music may be the last immense emotional experience he has. He may never experience that joy again and is making the most of it. I think Joe is realising this for the first time too instead of seeing Andy as "a case".

I thought that it worked. Yes, it was very dramatic, and was outside the rest of the movie's aesthetic, but I think that it worked.

The fact that it goes on a while is one of the things that I think works in the movie. Some scenes go on for more time than you would expect. It puts you off balance, but I think in a good way.

You have a movie that has the possibility of falling into TV-legal-drama territory. But, it's the off-beat moments like this that set the movie apart and prevent the movie from becoming TV-movie-ish.

It’s an important scene in which Andy confronts death. He and the woman in the song are prey to the Grim Reaper and every morsel of life they can savour become sacred, like tiny shards from heaven. Equally important is that Joe witnesses this, and the opera continues as he goes home and hugs his baby - with a renewed appreciation for the miracle of life - and embraces his sleeping wife, the opera still playing in his head.

Great to have such an expressive scene in an otherwise realist movie, much like Demme did with The Silence Of The Lambs.