{"id":5643,"date":"2010-02-26T17:36:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T17:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/friday-night-at-the-movies-shu.html"},"modified":"2010-02-26T17:36:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T17:36:29","slug":"friday-night-at-the-movies-shu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/friday-night-at-the-movies-shu.html","title":{"rendered":"Friday Night at the Movies: Shutter Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

This movie review comes to us from Travis Greene, well known to those who pay attention to those who comment. Travis blogs as well<\/a><\/strong>, and we want to thank him for this review.
\nAnd, if you have a review you’d like to publish here, send it along.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Shutter Island<\/span><\/u><\/i> Review – Travis Greene<\/span><\/u><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Shutter Island<\/span><\/i>, directed by Martin Scorcese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, and Ben Kingsley, is a psychological thriller that takes place at a mental hospital, on a remote island, in the middle of a hurricane. Those facts alone are probably enough to tell you if you want to see this movie. For me the answer was a clear yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

DiCaprio plays U.S. Marshal who, along with his new partner (Ruffalo), has been sent to an asylum for the criminally insane to investigate the disappearance of a patient there, but finds himself drawn into a much bigger mystery. Scorcese lays the forboding on a little thick during their approach, since the asylum, an abandoned Civil War fort on a barren island, is plenty creepy all on its own. But pairing with DiCaprio yet again works for the veteran director; few actors could be better suited to play the intense Marshal Daniels, driven by his own experience with mental illness and haunted by memories of liberating the concentration camp at Dachau.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


\n<\/p>\n


<\/u><\/i><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

The supporting cast is all quite
\ngood as well, including the always-welcome Max von Sydow as a menacing German psychiatrist
\n(who keeps asking DiCaprio whether he believes in God), as well as <\/span>Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle
\nHaley, who steal their single scenes. Kingsley, as usual, is great as the head
\npsychiatrist who seems to be hiding something.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The visuals around the island and
\nwithin the asylum’s walls are quite effective, but some of the flashback scenes
\nare a bit overwrought. I felt the same way about the score in some places; we
\ndon’t need musical cues to tell us that tiptoeing through the dark cells of a
\nfortress overrun by lunatics is scary. But the sound design in other places was
\nexcellent, as subtlety and silence can be much more unnerving than even the
\nmost Hitchcockian violins. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite a potentially fatal flaw
\nthat will be discussed below, Shutter
\nIsland<\/i> is overall a gripping and entertaining thriller with great
\nperformances. Be advised that the film contains intense scenes of violence and
\ndeath, including that of children, as well as strong language. It is not a
\nmovie to take your youth group to. But it is a movie that asks provocative
\nquestions about reality that will stick with you for days.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

SPOILER ALERT: The rest of this review will discuss specific
\nplot elements, including the ending. If you haven’t seen the film and would
\nlike to see it unspoiled and form your own opinion (which I recommend), do not
\nread further.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Still there? Ok.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

As I said, I was excited about the mysteries
\nof Shutter Island<\/i>, and while the film was entertaining and I’m glad I saw it, I
\ndon’t think it quite stuck the landing. You see, Shutter Island<\/i> has a twist
\nending. And like all “twist ending” movies, if it doesn’t pull off
\nthe twist, it leaves you feeling more cheated than thrilled or amazed. When my
\nwife and I saw the previews for Shutter Island<\/i>, I turned to her and said,
\n“I want to see that, but I hope it doesn’t just end with ‘turns out he was
\ncrazy the whole time!'” <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Well, that’s pretty much what
\nhappens. DiCaprio is in fact a patient at the asylum, a former Marshal who is
\nracked with guilt for killing his wife, and creates the whole scenario of being
\nthere to solve a crime because he can’t face reality. Ben Kingsley’s
\npsychiatrist character allows DiCaprio full run of the island to “solve
\nthe mystery” in an attempt to force him to realize the truth: there is no
\nmissing patient, and the demons he’s chasing turn out to just be him.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The problem is that a good twist
\nending relies on you completely believing the setup before<\/i> it pulls the
\nrug out from under you (see: The Sixth Sense<\/i>, Fight Club<\/i>). But the island is
\nsuch a twisted, reality-warping place seemingly full of conspiracies and
\nmisdirection, and DiCaprio so compellingly plays a man sliding into madness,
\nthat we don’t take anything at face value. We sense a twist coming, and hedge
\nour bets on who to believe, so when the big reveal comes, it’s the least
\ninteresting scene in the movie. Watching characters standing around a room
\nexplain why “it was all a dream” is a letdown after a tense two hours
\nof ominous lighthouses, treacherous cliff-climbing, and evil government cabals.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I should note that Shutter Island<\/i> is
\nbased on the Dennis Lehane book of the same name, which I have not read. It’s
\nquite possible that with the slow burn and character interiority possible in a
\nnovel the payoff works better than it did for me in the film.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite my disappointment with the
\nfilm’s central twist, the last few moments almost<\/i>
\nmade it worth it. DiCaprio does realize and accept the truth of who he is and
\nwhat he’s done. Kingsley tells him he has had this breakthrough before, but
\nthat if he regresses again they will have no choice but to lobotomize him. The
\nfilm ends with DiCaprio sitting on the steps of the asylum, talking to Ruffalo
\n(who turns out to actually be his psychiatrist). He has regressed again,
\ntalking as if he is still a Marshal out to catch Kingsley, and the orderlies
\nare sent to take him away for his lobotomy. But as he happily walks away with
\nthem, he asks Ruffalo, “Is it better to live as a monster or die as a good
\nman?” <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

The questions in the last scene
\nabout reality and fantasy are the most lingering of the film. If madness is
\nchosen as a defense against reality, is it truly madness? Is it better for some
\npeople to live in fantasy than to go on suffering? DiCaprio will effectively
\ndie, but he will do so (in his own mind) as a good man searching for justice,
\nrather than to go on living as a murderer. I am somewhat uncomfortably reminded
\nof the scene, which has always been a favorite of mine, in C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair<\/i> where Puddleglum
\ndeclares he’s going to go on living as a Narnian even if there isn’t any
\nNarnia. Like the similarly themed Pan’s
\nLabyrinth<\/i>, Shutter Island<\/i> seems
\nto suggest that for some, reality is so harsh that escape through fantasy is
\nthe only way out. It’s like the dark underside of Pascal’s gambit.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

But what of confession? DiCaprio’s
\ncharacter does not seem to seriously consider the possibility of moving forward
\nin the truth, accepting his own past but also accepting the offered help of the
\ndoctors who genuinely care about him. He lacks the imagination to see a third
\noption between living as a monster or dying as a good man: accepting the grace
\n(or in this film, therapy) offered him, and living as a redeemed man. His story
\nis doubly tragic; he has experienced and done terrible things, but when offered
\na way forward, he chooses instead to move backward, effectively ending his life
\nrather than take up the difficult work of repentance.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This movie review comes to us from Travis Greene, well known to those who pay attention to those who comment. Travis blogs as well, and we want to thank him for this review. And, if you have a review you’d like to publish here, send it along.   Shutter Island Review – Travis Greene   Shutter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies-and-film"],"yoast_head":"\nFriday Night at the Movies: Shutter Island - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/friday-night-at-the-movies-shu.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friday Night at the Movies: Shutter Island - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This movie review comes to us from Travis Greene, well known to those who pay attention to those who comment. 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