I realize that with competition like When in Rome, Valentine’s Day, Dear John, Book of Eli and Extraordinary Measures, that’s like being the least effeminate boy band member. But if Island were released in 2009 like it was supposed to be, there’s no doubt it would fill one of the 10 Best Picture Slots, taking the place of something idiotic like The Blind Side. As it stands, come next fall as Awards season rolls around, it’s almost a surety that Shutter Island will be forgotten. Too bad.
At least you can see it now, and since there’s really nothing else worth watching in theaters, might as well…Shutter Island marks Leonardo DiCaprio’s 4th collaboration with famed director Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver, Casino, Raging Bull), along with being Scorsese’s first movie since winning the Best Director Oscar for The Departed that he really deserved for Goodfellas. But who’s keeping track?
How does Shutter Island stack up in the DiCaprio/Scorsese canon? It’s a slim notch below The Departed but far more engaging than the uneven Gangs of New York and the slightly bloated Aviator.
Scorsese’s not going for any awards though he’d deserve some if properly released, as this thriller is his most overtly entertaining movie since ‘91’s Cape Fear. For those of you who’ve read the Dennis Lehane novel, the movie is mostly faithful, until…we’ll get to that later
Shutter Island: Yet another reason that the cast of Growing Pains are gnashing their gums with Jealousy. And if you read any other reviews, they’ll most likely contain the phrases “nothing is what it seems” and some version of “trust no one”, because it’s just that type of movie.
It’s 1954. An epoch in modern history considered the “Good Old Days” by old people because movies cost a nickel and milk cost a dime. It was also an era when pregnant women smoked and drank hard liquor well into the 3rd trimester and working dads everywhere ignored their children and bottled up their feelings so that when they eventually died of a heart attack or whatever you die of when you work in coal mines, no one went to their funeral.
It’s also an inglorious time for the mental health profession as 2 schools of thought are battling it out: one faction says pills, pills, INJECTIONS to numb the mentally ill and make them more docile, while another says treatment of the human being is essential and secondary to curing the disease. Those people have probably never been to Ashecliffe Institute for the Criminally Fucked Up and Extremely Crazy even Though We’re not Supposed to Use the Word Crazy because it’s Not Really PC But Let’s Face it These Mongos, when it comes to the Slot Machine of Life, will always be Bunches of Grapes and Bells short of getting the Sanity Jackpot that Gets you to Normalville with the Rest of the NonFreaks.
Ashecliffe is where US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio, now in his mid-thirties, but looking like in his 20’s instead of a perpetual teenager as he’s even got some man fuzz) is headed, located on the scenic, foggy, not-at-all threatening Shutter Island. It’s located somewhere near the East Coast because all the actors have their fake East Coast accents on. E.g. Harbor has been transformed into Hah-burr and Doctor is now Dawhk-terr and you must hold the first syllable of each word for about 4 seconds before going on to the next one.
Marshal Teddy can’t get to Ashecliffe soon enough, because it looks like he’s having a real bad case of seasickness. If given the choice, he’d rather have seasickness than the recurring nightmares involving his charred dead wife Dolores (the unnatural Michelle Williams) and memories of the Dachau liquidation.
Good thing Teddy’s new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) is there to hold his hand and give him some smokes. This is the first time Agent Daniels and Sidekick Chuck have ever worked together. That’s a rather innocuous piece of information that probably doesn’t plant a seed for something else that happens later in the movie. Just a piece of random data that you can forget and file in your back pocket under “unimportant”. Chuck has just such a neutral looking face that he can’t possibly be anything but someone to go along with Teddy, write in his notebook, and do whatever partners do. He even calls Teddy “boss”. Nothing initially fishy here.
Chuck and Teddy…or Teddy and Chuck are going to Ashecliffe because a patient named Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer) has escaped and it’s really ruffled the old white guys in charge. The head man Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley, sinister underneath his façade of erudition) is worried because Rachel seems to have disappeared without—
–What’s wrong with Rachel, you ask? She killed her 3 kids, sat them around the family dining table and then proceeded to eat breakfast. She might have been a tad upset when she asked 4-year old Junior Solando to pass the syrup but didn’t get any response because it’s hard to have good table manners when your mom just killed you. Rachel lives in her world where her kids aren’t dead and she’s not in a loony bin for killers and rapists, but back in her old house and her kids are still alive and everyone she encounters, from the doctors, the nurses and the primarily Negro orderlies are just a part of her fantasy as bankers and deliverymen and helpful neighbors that carry around huge needles encasing red or blue liquid and hold cups of pills that make everything all better. Sure, she seems nice on the outside, just don’t set her off.—
–chel seems to have disappeared without a trace. No one who was on duty that night saw her, and there isn’t anything that indicates Rachel herself has moved, other than the fact that she’s nowhere to be found. What’s more, it looks like there’s a huge storm on the horizon and if Rachel’s isn’t in her cell right quick, then she’ll probably be tossed out into the unforgiving sea. Too bad her primary physician went on vacation just this morning. He might have been able to help.
Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley, sinister with his shaved head and goatee) is one of those doctors who believe in treatment first, drugs second. His colleagues including Dr. Naehring (Max Von Sydow, looking sinister because that’s pretty much what Max Von Sydow does best), want to go hog wild with lobotomies damn near every chance they get. As the investigations begin, they seem to be taking a keen interest in Teddy’s whereabouts and his general state of mind.
Maybe they want Teddy to find Rachel, maybe they don’t. And what of those rumors that Ashecliffe conducts highly questionable tests on some of the more extreme cases? Or the whispers of genetic experimentation in collusion with the Nazis? Plotting a sequel to All About Steve?
But nothing should put Teddy, and the viewer, more at ease than knowing that Ashecliffe’s Deputy Warden is played by the Zodiac Killer from Zodiac (John Carroll Lynch) and that the Warden is played by Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine), spouting such cotton-candy and caramel lines like “God gave us violence to wage in his honor”.
Teddy and Chuck question everyone that might have seen Rachel on her last night and begin by interrogating the loonies. There’s a guy who stabbed his housekeeper and a woman who sharpened her ax with her husband’s head (“I hear enough voices”). For people who constantly shit themselves, their answers seem oddly uniform. Chuck and Teddy surmise that the prisoners, er, patients have been coached. Somebody doesn’t want our Marshals to know something. Maybe everybody on Shutter Island wants something hidden.
Teddy and Chuck keep it on the low and tiptoe their way to Ward C. Ward C is where Ashecliffe keeps the true dregs of society, the rapists, people who talk during movies, the multiple murderers.
Because they’ve had hours to get to know each other, Teddy feels intimate enough with Sidekick Chuck to drop this little nugget of info: Teddy has an ulterior motive other than Rachel for being at Ashecliffe. He’s looking for the man who set his wife on fire and he has it on good authority that that man is somewhere in Ashecliffe. More specifically somewhere in Ward C. Chuck takes this exposition with as neutral expression as possible, almost poker-faced. What would a partner that Teddy had never met before today possibly have to hide?
While the storm’s heaviness begins to hammer down, we’re given some good news. It seems the previously elusive Rachel has just been found.
Now that Rachel’s back, Teddy Boy’s troubles are just beginning. As the movie progresses we realize that Teddy has more than enough problems of his own. Because on Shutter Island, nothing is what it seems and Teddy can trust no one but himself, and even that’s more than a little sketchy.
What works with Shutter Island-
Though she’s better known for being Heath Ledger’s ex and/or the remaining Dawson’s Creek cast member that still has a film career, Michelle Williams is unhinged beneath a floral print dress and drugged-out smile. Dolores is seen mostly in Teddy’s nightmares and though she doesn’t have a lot of screentime, you’re thinking about her for most of the movie, and not in a good way. White people and their fucking problems…
For those of you who loved the final 10 minutes of Inglourious Basterds, get your feel-good on during the Dachau liquidation flashbacks. Wait, we’re not really supposed to be “enjoying” them, are we? But they’re Nazis, so it’s okay.
A game of Tag in Ward C. How bad is it when Jackie Earle Hailey (the new Freddy Krueger, Rorschach in Watchmen, the pedophile in Little Children), is one of the SANER denizens of Ashecliffe?
You may be able to guess the ending if you haven’t read the novel or haven’t had it spoiled, but only in the broadest of senses. It’s the details that’ll really trip you up, so pay attention to everything, even the stuff you don’t have to.
DiCaprio’s best work for Scorsese, a notch better than his tortured cop in The Departed. How good is it? You’ll appreciate the performance more the second time you see it.
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