SHUTTER ISLAND. (2010) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.

SHUTTER ISLAND. (2010)

BASED ON THE BOOK BY DENNIS LEHANE.

DIRECTED BY MARTIN SCORSESE.

STARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIO, MARK RUFFALO, MICHELLE WILLIAMS, BEN KINGSLEY, MAX VON SYDOW AND TED LEVINE.

I was glued to this psychological thriller film from the moment it started, but I knew I would be as I’d read the book by Dennis Lehane about a decade earlier and found it to be top-notch stuff. It has a terrific cast as well, with men who’ve acted in such unforgettable films as SCHINDLER’S LIST (Ben Kingsley), SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (Ted Levine) and even the most famous horror film of all time, THE EXORCIST (Max von Sydow).

Then, of course, we have Leonardo DiCaprio himself, who by this time has starred in films like TITANIC, THE BEACH and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. He has yet to win his long-coveted Oscar with THE REVENANT, and hasn’t yet acted in the terrific films that have made him one of the highest-paid actors in the world, films like THE GREAT GATSBY, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET and ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

Leo is brilliant in SHUTTER ISLAND as U.S. Marshal, Edward ‘Teddy’ Daniels, who has come to the titular island in Boston Harbour to investigate the case of a patient/prisoner who’s gone missing from the mental institution on the island, Ashecliffe Hospital. He has another Marshal, Chuck Aule, with him to help him work on the case.

It’s a woman called Rachel Solando who’s gone missing, a patient who refuses to accept that she murdered her three children by drowning them. Marshals Teddy and Chuck stay overnight in the creepy, atmospheric old hospital, which has a cemetery and a lighthouse on its extensive but rocky grounds, and try to get a handle on what they’re dealing with.

A hurricane and torrential rain batter the island as they talk to Drs. Cawley and Naehring, played by Ben Kingsley and Max von Sydow respectively, but the doctors run rings round them and Teddy feels like they know more about the missing patient and just exactly what kind of medicine is being practised on this spooky, out-of-the-way island than they’re letting on. But of course they do! They’re psychiatrists in a government lockdown hospital for the criminally insane. D’uh…!

Poor Teddy is plagued by migraine headaches, by memories of his beautiful dead wife that make no sense and also by memories whose meaning he understands only too well, painful recollections of when he was a young soldier liberating Dachau concentration camp in the depths of a bitterly cold winter in 1945.

Teddy is a complicated man, with a lot going on in his head. He has a shadowy past that we don’t fully understand and an uncertain future. His present is bewildering and confusing to him. Are the things that we see happen to him on the island really happening? What things are dreams and which are reality? Is U.S. Marshal Edward Daniels emotionally disturbed? I think we can safely say that that’s the least of what he is.

There’s even a suggestion that he may have been lured to the island by the government, using the ‘missing prisoner’ thing as the pretext. If so, that’s straight out of THE WICKER MAN, the 1973 British mystery film that sees Edward Woodward as poor Sergeant Howie being led a merry dance by the sinister, ill-intentioned islanders.

Is the same thing happening to Teddy Daniels? Is he being ‘gas-lit’ or misled by Drs. Cawley and Naehring? Are his every thought, action and movement being determined or dictated by them? Has he been brought here to fulfil some special, as yet unknown destiny?

And what about his conviction that Nazi-style medical experiments are taking place on the island, using the poor unfortunate patients as guinea-pigs? Just what is the truth behind the strange events that are happening in Ashecliffe Hospital, and also in poor Teddy’s injured mind…?

If I told you there was a massive twist in the movie that will blow your mind, would it ruin the movie for you? Would you spend the whole film trying to work out said twist? Everyone’s dead and this is all just a fantasy? It’s a dream and he’s going to wake up from it? He’s really his own wife? This all really happens, but to someone else and on a different timeline? This is all just a movie script written by some dude and none of it is real?

Tee-hee-hee. What larks! You’ll never guess. Or will you? I’ve had to stop watching films with my daughter because she can guess a twist a mile off. We’ll be watching a cool horror film together for a few seconds and she’ll say something like, one of the sisters is dead, that’s why you never hear them talk when someone else is in the room! And the annoying thing is that she’s always bloody right. Spot-on, in fact. So bloody annoying…

Don’t worry though, I won’t ruin Shutter Island for you. Pretend I haven’t even mentioned a twist, if you prefer. Just enjoy the movie and let your brain switch off as the twists and turns- ooops, it’s that word again- take you to some strange but exciting places. And drink in that gorgeous, wild and desolate scenery, very WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Over and out, guys and girls. See you next time…