Review:
Film Review: Shutter Island

Shutter Island is the latest film to be directed by the award-winning film-maker Martin Scorsese. It is based on the novel of the same name written by the acclaimed author Dennis Lehane and originally published by Harper Collins in 2003. (Lehane also wrote the book Mystic River, which was directed by Clint Eastwood and released in 2003.)

I haven’t actually read Lehane’s version of Shutter Island, but from the various synopses I have read, the film screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis appears to have stuck closely to the original story with hardly any embellishment. The film has a classic feel to it, not just due to its period setting, but to the style of its shooting, and its heavily melodramatic soundtrack. The noir thriller b-movie overtones of the film are reminiscent of the work of such classic directors as Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.

Teddy Daniels (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (played by Mark Ruffalo) are two US Marshals sent to investigate the escape of a patient from Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a secure facility established on a remote rocky island surrounded by treacherous waters and often tormented by severe weather. The escapee patient, Rachel Solando (played by Emily Mortimer), was found missing one morning after being locked in her cell for the night. Despite the best efforts of the local wardens they were not able to locate her, and so the matter has been escalated to the US Marshals Service.

Daniels quickly smells a rat, and concludes (quite rightly) that Rachel could not have escaped without assistance. Although the head psychiatrist at the facility, Dr. John Cawley (played by Ben Kingsley), indicates his willingness to be helpful, he refuses to provide files on the other patients and staff at the facility. Daniels is forced to conduct his own investigation with little outside assistance, and when he meets the German and resident psychiatrist, Dr. Naehring (played by Max Von Sydow), he immediately recalls the horrors he endured as a soldier in the Second World War, particularly at the liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau. Daniels is clearly troubled, also because he is still haunted by the death of his wife Dolores, who died several years ago when their apartment building burned down.