Shutter Island Movie Review

Shutter Island (2010)

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Written by: Laeta Kalogridis (screenplay), Dennis Lehane (novel)
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Emily Mortimer, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas
Rated: R
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Plot
Two US marshals are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient at a mental institution on an inhospitable island.

Verdict
It's a twisting mystery that devolves into horror on an isolated island with an asylum for the criminally insane. Set in the '50s gives it a moody film noir vibe. We follow Teddy as he tries to solve the case presented as well as a related case that seems to be driving him mad. The farther he gets the more sinister this island becomes, and the more it dredges up past memories. The final scene helps make this so memorable, the ambiguous question of the extremes one takes to deal with grief as the audience attempts to separate reality from delusions.
Watch It.

Review
Two marshals, Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), ride to an island penitentiary for the criminally insane. A patient, Rachel (Emily Mortimer), has gone missing, and they're tasked with finding her. The patient seems to have just vanished. It's a well policed facility, even if she had help where could she hide on the island?

Mark Ruffalo, Leonardo DiCaprio play Chuck Aule, Teddy Daniels

The 50s settings gives the detective story a mood, and the whole island is dark and menacing. Some of these patients are unnerving. Teddy isn't happy with the lack of support from the staff, doubting what they tell him and whether they can be trusted. He has a secondary investigation, asking patients about the man that killed his wife who he believes is a patient on the island.

Rachel returns and claims she knows Teddy. On top of everything else, Teddy is dealing with a debilitating migraine and dreams that mix Rachel, his dead wife, her killer, and his time in Germany during World War II. He's undeterred in his search, and he doubts the story he's being told. When the power goes out, it's Teddy and Chuck's chance to enter Ward C where the real dangerous patients are kept. That might be the location of his wife's killer. With the power out several patients are on the loose, and this becomes unsettling. This is the point where the movie becomes more horror than drama. Is Teddy losing it? Chuck disappears and Teddy finds a woman in a cave that claims to be the real Rachel (Patricia Clarkson). What is this? It seems like Teddy has stumbled upon some kind of conspiracy, but he isn't exactly a credible narrator. This woman tells him the doctors are going to commit him. They can't let him leave as he knows too much. It's a fanciful conspiracy, combined with Teddy's dreams we wonder if his visions are helping him work out the mystery or if he's delusional.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels

We reach a point in the story where the two scenarios presented seem like a stretch. Either the doctors have created an elaborate ruse to fix a patient or a sane marshal is being driven crazy as some kind of experiment. Either Teddy is crazy or is being driven crazy. That leads to the conclusion as we wonder which story is correct.  That question is what makes this fun.

SPOILERS

Teddy is indeed a patient, so guilt ridden that he's created a hallucination where he's the hero. The entire movie has been the world he's constructed and the doctors went along in the hopes Teddy could find closure. That leads to the conclusion. Teddy would rather die in the hallucination as a hero than live as a villain that killed his wife. Imagining this as the doctors driving him crazy as an experiment robs the conclusion of the impact. While it seems overly complex to create this illusion for him in an effort to heal him, sometimes movies are far fetched. The entire movie is Teddy trying to escape grief, first through a fantasy. At the end he realizes if he pretends he's hallucinating he can rid himself of the grief permanently.