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I find it ironic that the notoriously selective Leonardo DiCaprio within such a short amount of time picked two films with so much in common on the surface level. Both feature men wracked with guilt and emotional scarring that is barely contained below the surface. Both feature men dealing with puzzling memories of dead wives and long-lost children. Both feature men going into our dreams and psychosis to make sense of the outer realm. Inception is the better of the two, and most likely the one that is going to go into essential status, Shutter Island is a terrifically fun locked-in-an-asylum psychological thriller. It’s nowhere near the artistic level of DiCaprio’s and Martin Scorsese’s previous efforts, but it is a fantastic example of genre filmmaking.
From the opening musical notes to the stark, sometimes blinding, cinematography, doom, gloom and ominous to be expressed through characterization, dialogue and actions instead of absurdly loud, ponderous, nauseous action scenes. Leave it to a filmmaker from a previous generation to remember these basics of effective storytelling. And that is probably the thing that I appreciated the most about Shutter Island. It relied on telling a story well instead of getting from plot point A to B with as many explosions as possible. The story itself I found to be fairly predictable, but I didn’t mind. I was enthralled by how well it was done, how good each performance is, how detailed and period specific each costume, set and prop is. A lot of love and care went into this movie, and it shows through in each frame. It might not be a classic, but it’s very solid.
And the more I view the work of Michelle Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio, the more enraptured I become of their talents. Their ranges are impressive and their techniques couldn’t be more different. DiCaprio is the heir-apparent to the Method thrones of such towering figures as Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro. His ability to convey such complicated emotions, to not care about looking like hell, to sweat, stammer, be unlikable to the audience is astounding. He does whatever is right for the character, and he is always interesting to watch. And Michelle Williams has grown to be a minimalist actress who seems to be emotions rather than convey them. She embodies her characters with an all-encompassing focus and drive that’s daunting to think about attempting. I look forward to her work in My Week With Marilyn because of this tremendous amount of subtle work. If any actress could do proper justice to Monroe’s legacy, it is Williams, despite not looking much like her subject.
I’ve heard and read some reviews which indicate that the largeness of some of the films choices is too much for them. I disagree. We’re in a movie which follows a character with deep psychological trauma, scars upon scars which we cannot see or even imagine. Things have not healed, nor will they ever. I feel like to amp up the drama, atmospherics and claustrophobia to near operatic levels is a smart choice to help put us inside of his head. We’re not dealing with someone who came out of the WWII trenches completely mentally or emotionally intact.
