What is this movie:
- It's a Martin Scorsese film
- It's a psychological suspense thriller
- It's a puzzle wrapped, up in an enigma, inside a mystery
- It's a plot twister with lots of mind fucks
- It's Hitchcock jacked up on Steroids, HGH and Meth amphetamines
- It's a movie that ends with considerably ambiguity, and is open to four different interpretations.
- It features Leonardo DiCaprio, Max Von Sydow, and Sir Ben Kingsley.
- It has a fine cast of supporting actors including Mark Ruffalo and Jackie Earl Haley.
Warning Spoilers ahead: Turn back now if you haven't seen the film
As I mentioned before, this movie is a twister, and it has lots of mind fucks in it. It ends with great ambiguity, and I do not pretend to know the correct interpretation of this film. I will have to see it again at least once to try to solve this film. To solve this film, you must answer the following questions:
- Who is Leonardo DiCaprio? Is he Federal Marshall Teddy Daniels, sent forth to investigate the disappearance of dangerous female murderess named Rachel Solando, or is he Andrew Laeddis patient/inmate in the asylum, manipulated in a desperate role playing game devised by his psychiatrists in an attempt to reach him?
- Who is Rachel Solando? Is she psychiatrist Dr. Solando who discovered that terrible human experiments were in progress on Shutter Island, or she is a fictional character devised by the Psychiatrists as part of the role playing game devised to reach "Teddy's" sane mind?
- Is there anything untoward going on on Shutter Island? Are they performing mind control experiments in attempt to construct the U.S. Intelligence community's answer to the Manchurian Candidate?
- Is Dr. Naehring really a former Natzi, or is he just a German who immigrated to the United States legally?
- Is DiCaprio experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations because he has been slipped "psychoactive narcotics" by doctors desiring to make him their first 'Manchurian candidate', or is he just plain psychologically damaged and crazy?
I do not consider the question "Who is Mark Ruffalo?" to be important to the final solution. Whether he is U.S. Federal Marshall Chuck Aule, or Psychiatrist Dr. Lester Sheehan is of little import. He is absolutely not what he pretends to be. No matter how you slice it, he is a double agent of some sort. That is a constant. As my professors of science would tell you, you cannot explain a variable in terms of a constant. Throw this question away. It is a decoy.
These are your five basic questions for this movie. If you desire a solution to this plot-twister mystery, you better try to answer each one of these questions definitively. Otherwise you won't reach a conclusion. If you consider all the possible solutions to each of these 5 questions, only 4 coherent solutions can be worked out.
- DiCaprio is really Marshall Teddy Daniels. Daniels has been selected by the U.S. Intelligence community to become the official Manchurian Candidate. He has been selected because he has no living family, and had a tough war record in which he proved he could pull the trigger. In this case, dreadful human experiments are going on on Shutter Island. Naehring is a former Natzi. Solando is a psychiatrist Dr, Solando who wanted to blow the lid off this case. DiCaprio has been given psycho-active narcotics to make him hallucinate.
- DiCaprio is really an inmate/patient at Shutter Island. Only this and nothing more. His doctors are playing an elaborate role playing game in a desperate attempt to reach sanity with this patient and avoid the dreaded Pre-Orbital Lobotomy. Nothing dreadful is going on on Shutter Island. Solando is a fictional character invented by DiCaprio's psychiatrists as part of the role playing experiment to help sanitize his mind. DiCaprio is not hallucinating because he is being given hallucinogenics. He is hallucinating because he is deeply disturbed. He is given 'normal' medicines for his condition.
- DiCaprio is really an inmate/patient at Shutter Island. Dreadful experiments are going on. He is being screened as a possible candidate for the U.S. Intelligence community's Manchurian program because of his war record, and because all his family members are dead. Solando is really Psychiatrist Dr. Solando, and she did discover that dreadful things were in progress on Shutter Island. DiCaprio may or may not be hallucinating based on the chemicals he is given by his doctors.
- This movie is adapted from a novel which tries to play it both ways. The writer is a cheater and he is cheating here. He is intentionally dropping evidence on both piles with no possible coherent resolution in mind. The objective is to construct an unsolvable puzzle that seems solvable. The literary objective is to start ferocious and impassioned arguments between the readers/viewers who cannot agree on a solution. God knows that we have a ton of fun arguing about literature and movies. These kinds of debates can be highly entertaining. We do like stories like this.
Let me give you an example of disagreement stemming from the ambiguity of this movie.
My Dad called me early Friday evening and told me had seen the noon showing in his neighborhood theater already. He told me he loved it. He said he would never see a psychiatrist again. He was forever paranoid now that his doctors might be performing experiments on him in this fashion. Clearly, my Dad accepts solutions #1 or possibly #3. Nothing he said leads me to believe he accepts solution #2.
I saw the movie late last night with a buddy of mind name Colin. He runs most of the Mann Theatres North of the 10 Freeway in Los Angeles. He offered to get me for free. That was an offer I could not refuse. Colin was equally convinced that solution #2 is the correct solution. He thought solution #1 was totally out of the question. I would like to hear these two debate this notion.
What do I think? I think that solution #4 is probably the correct solution, but I am open to the possibility of solution #3 working out and being coherent. Why do I saw this? Because of Dr. Solando in the cave. Unless you believe that the role playing experiment extends all the way to ragged Dr. Solando being placed in a cave for a brief moment, she is a hard fact to explain away. Either there is no solution to the story of Shutter Island, or it is #3.
Update:
I just finished seeing the movie again, and I must say that I uncovered three uncomfortable scenes. These three scenes do not fit conveniently into any solution. This is probably the leading reason 33% of the critics are negative on this flick, claiming their is no viable solution.
- Scene 1 when we are on-board the Ferry riding to the Island. I find it difficult to accept the notion that an elaborate role playing game could have been inaugurated after Andrew Laeddis had been incarcerated on Shutter Island for some 2 years. How did they get started on this Ferry? Further if Dr. Lester Sheehan had been his doctor for some 2 years, then why does Andrew act like he is just meeting him for the first time?
- Scene in the Mausoleum: In this scene Marshall Chuck greatly extends Marshall Teddy's paranoia, telling him that the Fed may have tricked him into taking this assignment because they may want him for the Manchurian Program. Why would Dr. Lester Sheehan ever say such a thing as this? Even if he is playing a role in a role playing experiment, it does not serve his objectives (mental health and sanity) to increase Andrew/Teddy's paranoia.
- Interview with a Female Patient: In this interview, Teddy and Chuck both ask this female patient about Dr. Lester Sheehan, and Andrew Laeddis. The woman asks for a glass of water to get rid of Chuck/Lester and she anxiously scribbles in Teddy/Andrew's notebook the single world "RUN!".
