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A review by wokeupbricked
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
2.0
♠️ 2.7 EERIE STARS ♠️ [ꜱᴘᴏɪʟᴇʀꜱ]
Which ending do you believe in?
Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss?
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?
[gets up and walks off]
Chuck Aule: Teddy?
[OR]
George Noyce: This is a game. All of this is for you. You're not investigating anything. You're a fucking rat in a maze.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a tacit rule that any movie made by a great film-maker automatically deserves the benefit of the doubt, in other words: if you hate it, you didn't get it.
Littered with weird visions, wild hallucinations, back-breaking plot twists and - unfortunately - scene after scene of dead children, this story laps itself in confusion and covers itself with a thick layer of obfuscation leaving one shaking one's head and wondering just what the point of the entire enterprise was.
The story is so 'obvious' that it would be tragic if it wasn't so laughable. And it's obvious because it works on that reverse effect, as movie fans, we know that whatever seems obvious in the first act will probably be contradicted. True BUT whatever seems obvious is exactly the opposite of what is shown during that very first act, because we know we're being tricked by the writer. I think we all saw the twist from a mile's radius!? And even if someone didn't, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have been surprised either.
I'm not implying that the movie is not worth watching, but it plays like an overlong build-up for a weak climax, a build-up, during which nothing very pleasing happens.
The weaknesses of the plot canceled out all the cinematographic attempts to justify the movie's cinematic merit. Nothing special happens, nothing really happens.
To me, this movie had so much potential - all of which was smashed to bits by heavy-handed direction, a punch-in-the-face musical score, dead-end plot lines and a mystery that Nancy Drew herself would have found far too easy to solve. Then, after the endless maze of twists and turns we're forced to go through, the movie takes a lame swipe.
Teddy lining up german soldiers against the wall and machine-gunning them, one of prisoners scribbling run when no one was watching, I'm not sure why these scenes were in the movie, since they had nothing to do with the plot - then again, NOTHING in this movie had ANYTHING to do with the plot.
Teddy even tracks down an old college friend, George Noy (Jackie Earle Haley, Jr., "Little Children"), now housed in the dreaded C Ward; and later meets a facility doctor hiding out in a cave raving about the Cold War, mind-control experiments and brainwashing techniques. But like everything else, these story-lines, too, come to dead ends.
The plot does not make much sense. Leo is really a patient himself on Shutter Island, and to get him to accept his past, all physicians, psychiatrists, prison guards and patients are acting to support his idea of reality. How likely is it that doctors could get criminally insane to help in this way? It would not be feasible. They are all just as crazy as Teddy. If not more.
If the goal is to get Teddy to accept his past and that he is patient, why are the doctors then doing everything they can to act suspicious and untrustworthy?
Teddy's gun is a toy gun. How likely is it that Teddy does not until the very end discovers that it is made of plastic, not metal and wood? Especially when he is supposed to be extremely intelligent.
On the whole, they let a seemingly very dangerous patient walk freely around the island for several days. They let him blow up a car and knock a guard out. They would never let it come so far in reality.
What is the meaning of it all? Why put the whole circus together due to one mental patient? Why feed on his delusions, if the goal is to make him accept his past? Why is he more interesting than all the other patients? Why don't they just talk to him and give him medicine that prevents him from inventing an alternative reality? Yes it is 1954 and yes the time they knew not what we know today and yes they would probably give him a lobotomy as it is indicated they will at the end of the movie. But still.
Let's talk about the ending now shall we?
Even if the ending makes sense, how would you explain the scene where he interviews the women and she writes him the note telling him to RUN? Then she pretends to drink the water (you can see she has no glass in her hand) and that’s because they’re drugging them with the stuff the give them to drink and eat and the pills (aspirin) and the cigarettes and the woman knows that that’s why she doesn’t actually drink the water. She also wrote the note while chuck was away because she knows chuck is actually an actual doctor and not on Teddy's side. That contradicts the ending, but these tales have no explanation.
John Anderson from the Wall Street Journal says the film -
"requires multiple viewings to be fully realized as a work of art. Its process is more important than its story, its structure more important than the almost perfunctory plot twists it perpetrates. It's a thriller, a crime story and a tortured psychological parable about collective guilt."
Thus, I would like to post some intricate observations made by an imdb reviewer that captures the hidden beauty of this film:-
"I had this movie all wrong I will admit at the start I didn't get it and I was angry but after having a chat with my friend who went with me we both gasped when we realised what happened. The twist wasn't that he was the inpatient (seriously I think everyone saw that coming from a mile away!) the twist was the intervention actually worked. He was cured, he deliberately made it look like he relapsed because he did not want to live with the memory of what happened to his family. He blamed himself for ignoring that his wife was clearly unstable. The line "would you rather die as a good man or live as a monster" Depicted he wanted to die as a good man (lobotomized) then live with the memory of what happened. Also the symbolism of fire and water tells you when he is hallucinating (fire) and when he is lucid (water trickling through.) The delusion he concocts to save himself from accepting the truth is that his wife died in a fire. All the people he talks to surrounded by fire is a hallucination – the woman in the cave, the patient in the cell, the scarred faced man who he thinks killed his wife, the car blowing up – all a delusion. The water symbolizes reality trying to break through. He is afraid of water – ( and rightly so!His kids were drowned, they all died in front of the lake.) Also at the start he says he gets 'sea sick' – he is mortally afraid of water. He has to swim to get to the lighthouse."
Thus saying, don't be side tracked by the obvious twist...there is more than one.
Might have to rewatch the movie sometime again for better appreciation of its art. As of now, it would have to settle for 2.7 STARS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
~ my favourite quote:
Teddy Daniels: "I'm sorry, Honey. I love this thing because you gave it to me. But the truth is... it is one fuckin' ugly tie."
Which ending do you believe in?
Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss?
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?
[gets up and walks off]
Chuck Aule: Teddy?
[OR]
George Noyce: This is a game. All of this is for you. You're not investigating anything. You're a fucking rat in a maze.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a tacit rule that any movie made by a great film-maker automatically deserves the benefit of the doubt, in other words: if you hate it, you didn't get it.
Littered with weird visions, wild hallucinations, back-breaking plot twists and - unfortunately - scene after scene of dead children, this story laps itself in confusion and covers itself with a thick layer of obfuscation leaving one shaking one's head and wondering just what the point of the entire enterprise was.
The story is so 'obvious' that it would be tragic if it wasn't so laughable. And it's obvious because it works on that reverse effect, as movie fans, we know that whatever seems obvious in the first act will probably be contradicted. True BUT whatever seems obvious is exactly the opposite of what is shown during that very first act, because we know we're being tricked by the writer. I think we all saw the twist from a mile's radius!? And even if someone didn't, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have been surprised either.
I'm not implying that the movie is not worth watching, but it plays like an overlong build-up for a weak climax, a build-up, during which nothing very pleasing happens.
The weaknesses of the plot canceled out all the cinematographic attempts to justify the movie's cinematic merit. Nothing special happens, nothing really happens.
To me, this movie had so much potential - all of which was smashed to bits by heavy-handed direction, a punch-in-the-face musical score, dead-end plot lines and a mystery that Nancy Drew herself would have found far too easy to solve. Then, after the endless maze of twists and turns we're forced to go through, the movie takes a lame swipe.
Teddy lining up german soldiers against the wall and machine-gunning them, one of prisoners scribbling run when no one was watching, I'm not sure why these scenes were in the movie, since they had nothing to do with the plot - then again, NOTHING in this movie had ANYTHING to do with the plot.
Teddy even tracks down an old college friend, George Noy (Jackie Earle Haley, Jr., "Little Children"), now housed in the dreaded C Ward; and later meets a facility doctor hiding out in a cave raving about the Cold War, mind-control experiments and brainwashing techniques. But like everything else, these story-lines, too, come to dead ends.
The plot does not make much sense. Leo is really a patient himself on Shutter Island, and to get him to accept his past, all physicians, psychiatrists, prison guards and patients are acting to support his idea of reality. How likely is it that doctors could get criminally insane to help in this way? It would not be feasible. They are all just as crazy as Teddy. If not more.
If the goal is to get Teddy to accept his past and that he is patient, why are the doctors then doing everything they can to act suspicious and untrustworthy?
Teddy's gun is a toy gun. How likely is it that Teddy does not until the very end discovers that it is made of plastic, not metal and wood? Especially when he is supposed to be extremely intelligent.
On the whole, they let a seemingly very dangerous patient walk freely around the island for several days. They let him blow up a car and knock a guard out. They would never let it come so far in reality.
What is the meaning of it all? Why put the whole circus together due to one mental patient? Why feed on his delusions, if the goal is to make him accept his past? Why is he more interesting than all the other patients? Why don't they just talk to him and give him medicine that prevents him from inventing an alternative reality? Yes it is 1954 and yes the time they knew not what we know today and yes they would probably give him a lobotomy as it is indicated they will at the end of the movie. But still.
Let's talk about the ending now shall we?
Even if the ending makes sense, how would you explain the scene where he interviews the women and she writes him the note telling him to RUN? Then she pretends to drink the water (you can see she has no glass in her hand) and that’s because they’re drugging them with the stuff the give them to drink and eat and the pills (aspirin) and the cigarettes and the woman knows that that’s why she doesn’t actually drink the water. She also wrote the note while chuck was away because she knows chuck is actually an actual doctor and not on Teddy's side. That contradicts the ending, but these tales have no explanation.
John Anderson from the Wall Street Journal says the film -
"requires multiple viewings to be fully realized as a work of art. Its process is more important than its story, its structure more important than the almost perfunctory plot twists it perpetrates. It's a thriller, a crime story and a tortured psychological parable about collective guilt."
Thus, I would like to post some intricate observations made by an imdb reviewer that captures the hidden beauty of this film:-
"I had this movie all wrong I will admit at the start I didn't get it and I was angry but after having a chat with my friend who went with me we both gasped when we realised what happened. The twist wasn't that he was the inpatient (seriously I think everyone saw that coming from a mile away!) the twist was the intervention actually worked. He was cured, he deliberately made it look like he relapsed because he did not want to live with the memory of what happened to his family. He blamed himself for ignoring that his wife was clearly unstable. The line "would you rather die as a good man or live as a monster" Depicted he wanted to die as a good man (lobotomized) then live with the memory of what happened. Also the symbolism of fire and water tells you when he is hallucinating (fire) and when he is lucid (water trickling through.) The delusion he concocts to save himself from accepting the truth is that his wife died in a fire. All the people he talks to surrounded by fire is a hallucination – the woman in the cave, the patient in the cell, the scarred faced man who he thinks killed his wife, the car blowing up – all a delusion. The water symbolizes reality trying to break through. He is afraid of water – ( and rightly so!His kids were drowned, they all died in front of the lake.) Also at the start he says he gets 'sea sick' – he is mortally afraid of water. He has to swim to get to the lighthouse."
Thus saying, don't be side tracked by the obvious twist...there is more than one.
Might have to rewatch the movie sometime again for better appreciation of its art. As of now, it would have to settle for 2.7 STARS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
~ my favourite quote:
Teddy Daniels: "I'm sorry, Honey. I love this thing because you gave it to me. But the truth is... it is one fuckin' ugly tie."