A World of Confusion

Rating: 7/10 (24 February 2010)

Martin Scorsese has set out to make a film in a genre he's never attempted with "Shutter Island." As usual, the greatest director to ever live brings new life into the psychology thriller genre. "Shutter Island" is essential Scorsese. At the heart of the movie is Andrew Leadis. Leadis is brought to us by US Marshall, Teddy Daniels. Scorsese takes "American Psycho" to a whole new level of insanity by depicting the film through the eyes of a delusional man. It is an unrelenting character study and one of Scorsese's finest. One cannot review the film without talking about the second act, which means there are going to be spoilers.
Scorsese depicts "Shutter Island" through the eyes and the lens of its protagonist. Every scene, every shot is a world most people have never seen, but one that haunts Teddy Daniels. This is a film you experience. You experience what its like to be a man so full of delusions that he literally has no idea the people he's talking to might not exist. Daniels is a man obsessed with finding the man who killed his wife (played perfectly by Michelle Williams). What Daniels doesn't know is that he is looking for himself. "Shutter Island" does not rely on a twist ending that is supposed to shock and awe audiences. "Shutter Island" is told through the eyes of Daniels and we as an audiences go along for the ride. We play along as Teddy Daniels vigorously attempts to find the killer that is somewhere in Shutter Island.
We see how Teddy is haunted by his past through his dreams. He does everything he can to suppress those dreams, but his subconscious refuses to let go of the past that Andrew so dearly wishes never existed. Like Teddy, we suppress the fact that he is a patient there because we simply don't want to believe it to be true. We believe there is something more going on. We believe that the hospital is there to repress thoughts of its patients despite all the hints by doctors and partners and patients alike that Teddy is actually Andrew. Teddy refuses to see those hints, but we as an outsider pick up on it, and I suspect that Teddy does as well.
"Shutter Island" does something that has never been done before. It takes a delusional man and shows how he exists in a world of delusions and confusion. Most films, "American Psycho" the most prominent, have snippets of characters going in and out of a delusional state of mind. Patrick Batemen becomes increasingly more and more delusional as the film progresses. That shows the decent into habitual delusions while "Shutter Island" shows the constant state of mind that Teddy Daniels is in. From the storm not actually existing to Teddy's dreams, we are completely and totally submerged into this mans mind and the maze he has created for himself. Andrew has created a persona named Teddy who is a good man who is attempting to solve the murder of his wife. Andrew at the same time creates a person for the man who actually did kill his wife... a scarred man that killed his wife in a house fire, he's a monster and that's how Andrew sees himself. Two persona's of Andrew Leadis at two different times in his life. Teddy is the good Marshall that he believed he once was. Andrew is the monster that killed his wife after she drowned their three children.
All that I didn't even get to the performances, which are all first rate, the score, the cinematography and the haunting tone and tension created by the set and costume designs. This is a film that takes you into the mind of a man that has gone insane. It takes you and puts you in his shoes, and surprisingly, as a sane person, you seem to think just like the man that is insane, which brings up some interesting ideas. "Shutter Island" is a complex and layered film that is full of ambiguity. It has haunted me and stuck with me long after seeing it.