Shutter Island: Anyone Seen A Preview or read the book? (probable SPOILERS)

Cafe Society
1

Martin Scorcese’s new movie Shutter Island opens this weekend. I’m somewhat interested in it, even though the release was delayed several months and it opens in February, the Siberia of movie release dates.

However, I suspect i have figured out the “twist”, if it has one, and if so I won’t want to waste my time.
What I suspect is that:

Leonardo DiCaprio’s character is a regular patient of the mental institution, and the whole “undercover investigation” plot of the movie is his hallucination/paranoid fantasy.

Is this correct?

2

I’ve read the book.

You’re essentially correct.

3

Bah. Maybe Scorcese will still make it worth seeing.

4

I haven’t read the book but have seen the movie and it was very good. Not something I’m likely to want to watch again, but well-shot, well acted, great visuals, and very atmospheric.

5

I saw it today and liked it quite a bit even though I worked out the ending long before we got there. However I loved that, in typical Dennis Lehane style. we are left with a nice little conundrum:

After Dr Sheehan indicates that it is lobotomy time Teddy/Andrew asks is it better to live as a monster or die as a good man. Sheehan calls out “Teddy, Teddy” but knowing what is about to happen he calmly walks off with the staff. Does he really know that he is not Teddy but figures the lobotomy is the best bet?

6

My answer to the spoiler question would be yes, absolutely.

7

That was one of the things I really liked about the film, especially since

Nothing in the film contradicts Teddy’s “version” of events (ie that he is actually a US Federal Marshall investigating an escaped patient and that something very weird is going on, but

Dr. Cawley’s “explanation” is just as plausible and there are little clues throughout the film that back it up and indicate he really is trying to help

As for the ending,

I figured that Teddy either accepted he was insane and pretended to relapse to get the lobotomy so he wouldn’t have to deal with the pain and guilt surrounding the deaths of his wife and family, OR Teddy was right all along and had been set up for something, and realised he was never getting off the island so saw a lobotomy as the only real alternative to spending the rest of his life in an insane asylum.

An interesting film no matter how you look at it, though!

8

**I hated it. **

I liked the entire film better when it was:

Memento

Worse, I told my Mom this the moment it ended, she was sitting next to me.

She forgot it was the same plot.

That has to be irony.

9

But, aside from that, the underlying question is perfectly split.

There is just one thing I want confirmed.

Wasn’t there one scene, where DiCapprio’s Cig was … Unsmoking? Looked like the tape was in reverse. Which, I may point out, the movie I mention above post of mine also had in it.