Is it worse to live as a monster, or die as a good man?

Shutter Island takes place in 1954. It tells the story of Ted Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), two Federal Marshals sent to investigate how a patient, Rachel Solando, escaped from her locked room inside Ashecliffe mental hospital for the criminally insane.

The trailer doesn’t reveal much about the story. It leads one to think Shutter Island would be “a trapped in a house with an axe murderer” type of horror movie, i.e. decidedly un-Scorsese. Indeed Scorsese dedicates much of the first act to establishing an oppressive atmosphere of fear and paranoia, essential elements of the horror genre. The drab lighting, constant rain, and cacophonous mixture of thunder and gale more than once made me think of The Wolfman. Soon enough though, Scorsese outgrows the edifice of horror and enters the terrain of classic detective-noir that we know and love, while still skillfully maintaining and enriching the moody texture. We find the mysterious disappearance of Rachel Solando is merely a pretext for Teddy’s presence on Shutter Island. Both he and the wardens of Ashecliffe, led by the opaque Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), have something to hide, and Teddy must race to uncover the truth before his secret consumes him.

The movie possesses many excellent elements. Scorsese masterfully mixes together costumes, lighting and haunting shots of the landscape, both inside and outside of Ashecliffe, to stir up a visceral sense of ever-present danger. In addition, the deliberate pacing helps one empathize with Teddy and digest the increasingly convoluted plot.

That being said, I did find myself quite annoyed with several aspects of Shutter Island as I watched it:

The opening sequence in which the boat carrying Teddy and Chuck appears out of the fog appeared to be filmed with CGI. The contrast between the boat and actors in the foreground and the back-projected (green-screened) seascape was blatantly obvious, bordering on farcical. I thought this was a very strange decision since it would be both easier and less expensive to simply shoot the scene on an actual boat at sea, and digitally edit in the weather and/or lighting afterwards. This being a Scorsese film, the technical sloppiness was shocking.

I really had a problem with how they used music. The Wagnerian (don’t quote my music knowledge please) theme score begins as Teddy and Chuck land on Shutter Island, gradually intensifies as they approach Ashecliffe, and culminates in a screeching crescendo when they step inside the asylum and the gates close behind them. I appreciate the music’s purpose in preparing viewers for the film’s ominous and suspenseful tone, as well as foreshadowing the danger that awaits Teddy, but I thought it was overkill and mismatched with the rhythm of the movie. In fact the music left me hanging, waiting impatiently as Scorsese went on a winding and fairly long exposition. This concentration of music at the beginning also created an imbalance with the rest of the film, since the remaining soundtrack, aside from parts during flashback scenes, contained very little non-diegetic sound.

The number and length of scenes inside Teddy’s mind were puzzling; they disrupted the film’s flow. They are useful of course, shedding light on the relationship Teddy has with his past. His participation in WWII, the liberation of and massacre at Dachau, his wife, the arsonist who ignited the apartment fire that took her life, Rachel Solando, and her three children admonishing him for not saving them in time. One gets the feeling that Teddy wasn’t such a happy man even before he came to Shutter Island. The past seems to fuel him however, empowering him with purpose even as it torments him. I wish only it didn’t last so long.

These things made me like the movie less and less as it lumbered towards the climax. By the time it happened however, I realized I shouldn’t have doubted Scorsese after all. Although the ultimate secret itself was not unforeseeable, it caused me to reevaluate the experience as a whole.

Shutter Island is a classic case of the journey being more satisfying than the destination. Scorsese, aided by a brilliant performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, explores in depth an immensely layered and amorphous character, repeatedly challenging viewers’ assumptions about reality and narrative perspective, all the while weaving together a coherent and gripping narrative that doesn’t get torn apart by his emotional extremes. The film is an excellent example of a detective mystery. The action is shot almost entirely from an objective point of view with restricted narration, which conceals knowledge from the audience and Teddy alike, thereby strengthening the two’s emotional bond on his odyssey. It’s also ripe with foreshadowing, which encourages repeated viewings in order to catch and savor the smallest details.

This is not to say Shutter Island is without flaws; on the contrary my objections are still valid. After some research however, I found them not to be careless mistakes but rather conscious decisions of style. In a 2007 interview, Scorsese revealed that he envisioned Shutter Island as a film in the style of Alfred Hitchcock: one auteur’s tribute to another. As such, the CGI sea scene and the overwhelming opening score are among the elements that Scorsese utilizes in order to instill and enhance a sense of hyper-unreality, as well as pay homage to Hitchcock. I’ll also refrain from criticizing the storyline (it being either too far-fetched or too predictable), which seems to be drawing the ire of some critics. It was adapted from a novel by Dennis Lehane (who also wrote Mystic River), and I haven’t read the book. So it seems only one thing remains, the length. Scorsese was sometimes overindulgent in his tribute, for some scenes felt dragged out and dull. Personally I think shaving off fifteen minutes or so of runtime would have improved the pace around the middle acts and perhaps even intensified the experience, appeasing those who complained that they were able to see the final twist coming.

In summary, this review was my meandering way of saying I RECOMMEND Shutter Island.

If you find yourself liking Shutter Island, or just want to explore the genre, check out the below recommendations: