Shutter Island (2010)

Shutter Island is more than just a schlocky B movie homage. It's Martin Scorsese having fun with genre tropes while simultaneously subverting them and adding emotional depth. There's an artifice throughout the film that will turn some off of it. This style is intentional on Scorsese's part. He and Thelma Schoonmaker do an incredible job of constantly throwing the audience for a loop. Whether it be purposeful continuity errors(one I loved involved a particular glass of water) or what some have deemed awkward editing. It's the same technique Kubrick used in movies like A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. It fittingly throws you into the world that they've created with this movie.


Leonardo DiCaprio, in what is a great performance, plays US Marshal Teddy Daniels. He and his partner(played by the always reliable Mark Ruffalo) come to the island to help find an inmate named Rachel Solando. Once they reach the island they encounter strange and suspicious activity on the part of everyone, including the guards and doctors.(two of the doctors played by the wonderful Ben Kingsley and Max Von Sydow) Something's not right and Teddy intends to find out, but how far down the rabbit hole is he willing to go and what are the consequences of doing so?


Teddy has flashbacks, dreams and fantasies that carry the real emotional weight of the film. Some will write off the dreams he has of his wife(Michelle Williams) as empty surrealism. The fact of the matter is that these dreams are very important in the framework of the film. The subtle chemistry between DiCaprio and Williams along with his longing memory of her is heartbreaking. He is obsessed with her memory and cannot and will not let her go. Scorsese is once again visiting the theme of obsession. It's a similar obsession to Jimmy Stewart's in Hitchcock's Vertigo. It also has subtle homages to his favorites like The Red Shoes, The Shining, Shock Corridor, The Trial, Vertigo and so many more will be a delight for many that have seen those films.


The core of the movie has to do with Teddy's investigation on the island. His interactions with characters like Ben Kingsley's Dr. Cawley are often surreal and cloaked in mystery. There's also small roles by Jackie Earle Haley, Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson as well as other class actors. Like the movie Mulholland Drive, nothing makes sense but everything counts. Every little clue and interaction and every word. It's no wonder that Scorsese got such great talent even in the smallest of roles. Every part of the puzzle is important and the audience gets a subjective view of the proceedings through Teddy's perspective. You find out every detail along with him.

Many have and will see the movie and think they guessed a twist here or what can be thought of as a gimmick in the narrative there. The fact of the matter is that in the deft hands of Scorsese, he takes what could have been a cliche addled story and subverts it. The movie isn't about any particular twist or turn, it's about Teddy's character. It's about the memory of his wife, his alcoholism and his experience liberating a concentration camp in Dauchau during World War II. These are all things he deals with on Shutter Island while at the same time trying to solve his case. Will he solve his case or will Shutter Island and it's mysterious forces swallow him whole?