Shutter Island

Shutter Island (2010) is adapted from Dennis Lehane's novel and becomes an entirely different film on a second viewing. 1954. Federal marshal Teddy Daniels travels to a psychiatric hospital on an island off Boston. A patient has vanished and there is no way off the island. He begins investigating, the administration will not cooperate, and a storm cuts the island off from the mainland. The structure is built like a trap. Things that look like inconsistencies on a first viewing are clues: a glass disappearing from someone's hand, conversations that do not line up, the behaviour of the patients. Scorsese put them there deliberately, not by accident. A single line at the end determines the meaning of the whole film, and it has been argued about for fifteen years: whether the character has actually recovered is left open. It was the fourth film Scorsese and DiCaprio made together. The atmosphere comes out of older psychological thrillers; the lighting, the fog and the music are deliberately overdone. The piece playing over the opening ferry sequence enters like a horror film, and that choice announces what this is from the start. Max von Sydow and Ben Kingsley are in the cast. It runs 138 minutes. Good for: psychological thrillers, mystery, and Scorsese. Less good for: it contains concentration camp scenes, the death of children, and asylum imagery. The tone is oppressive throughout.