Shutter Island

I vaguely recall an article I read back in the fall of 2006, shortly before the release of Martin Scorsese's THE DEPARTED. The article mentioned that some of that film's studio execs said, "No, no, THE DEPARTED isn't intended as an 'Oscar season' movie; it's intended as mere mainstream entertainment." As it ultimately turned out, it looks like the film was actually intended as both, and it succeeded immensely as both. But perhaps the SHUTTER ISLAND studio execs should've issued that warning for Scorsese's latest film, as that may have calmed down the spree of people who are scratching their heads as to why the renowned director didn't give us yet another masterpiece here. It's very obvious that that simply wasn't the intention. SHUTTER ISLAND is psychologically stimulating and intriguing, without necessarily being psychologically haunting: it doesn't aspire to be anything more than just a good movie, and that's perfectly fine. This explains why it was moved from being released during "awards season" to February. To be honest, I'm delighted that something as intelligent and engaging as SHUTTER ISLAND is getting released at this point in the year, because it's a reprieve from the dross that normally occupies multiplexes right now.

With that said, though, there IS a reason why high expectations for SHUTTER ISLAND weren't necessarily unwarranted: the film is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote two novels that became fantastic film adaptations: MYSTIC RIVER and GONE BABY GONE. However, as SHUTTER ISLAND gets underway, it becomes fairly obvious that we're dealing with different material here, and really, a different genre altogether. Rather than being a restrained, dialogue-driven drama, it's more of a frenetic psychological thriller. One thing they do have in common, though, is the presence of a "twist" ending of sorts.

SHUTTER ISLAND doesn't necessarily reveal its twist at the beginning, but it sure as heck points us in the direction of it very heavily. The first few scenes feature too many instances of federal marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) staring around curiously with a face that screams "Hmmm, I've seen this before," and if there's people who don't find that obvious enough, there's an actual LINE in those early scenes that makes it even clearer. Perhaps it's a good idea, though, because it lets the audience know pretty much from the beginning that we shouldn't necessarily "trust" the perspective of our protagonist. We see everything from his point of view... but something's obviously not right.

While the sense of paranoia is constant here, some of the film's scenes work better than others. There's a slightly off-putting sequence that features a "dream within a dream," but doesn't quite work as effectively as it should because the first dream is remarkably longer than the second one, thus making the second one feel almost like an insignificant afterthought. The weather is used much more often than it should be, and there's no doubt that the rainstorms become repetitive after a while. The film is far better at conveying fear during its interior scenes during which the dark, gothic atmosphere is constantly palpable. The VERY BEST scene in the movie takes place in a cave that's right next to a shore. All I'll say about it is that it's Patricia Clarkson's one scene in the film and that she is spectacular in it, and that the dialogue during the scene is expertly rendered - if anyone wasn't intrigued by the film at this point, they surely will be after this scene.

As is often the case in movies with a twist ending, the final scenes get way too caught up in explaining everything away. We've seen it before, but it's a little more disheartening to see it involve actors of the caliber of Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Kingsley. I have more things to say about the resolution, but I'll reserve them for the "spoilers" section at the end of the review.

There's no doubt that the film's purpose is to screw with your mind. If you love that, then you'll delight heartily in SHUTTER ISLAND, and you'll then want to see it again to try to see if there are plot holes in light of the climax's revelations. I don't think there are plot holes, though some may argue that there are things that some characters "did" in early scenes that don't make sense, but for any instance in which someone argues something like that, there'll surely be another viewer who will be able to come up with a reasonable explanation in light of the film's events. Any film that is capable of creating that kind of discussion and of being so engrossing and mentally stimulating, particularly at this time of the year, is more than welcome in my mind, regardless of whether or not it was made by a director from whom we've come to expect near perfection.

*SPOILER WARNING*

A discussion of SHUTTER ISLAND doesn't feel complete without at least commenting on its revelatory final act. When Teddy discovers that, not only is that not his real name and that he is not a visiting federal marshal, but that he's actually been a patient in SHUTTER ISLAND for the last two years, I was telling myself, "Pleeeease, let this not be for sure." Given the fact that, right before this revelation comes, we were under the assumption that Teddy really was a federal marshal and that he was just being drugged and manipulated, I was hoping that perhaps there was a chance that they were simply drugging and manipulating him INTO thinking that he'd been a patient there for the last two years, and that the movie would simply end without us knowing for sure. However, too many things happen after the revelation that seem to make it obvious that the revelation is actually true, the most notable being Mark Ruffalo's character shaking his head "no" at the end (which may be one of the few, if not the only, moment in the film in which the audience does NOT see something from the perspective of DiCaprio's character). I still appreciate the fact that the ending is complex (and emotionally devastating, at some moments), but I guess that sometimes I prefer not being given the answer so deliberately, especially by a movie that thrived so much during its first two thirds in confounding the viewer, and did so well at it.

6/10