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"Shutter Island": a lot more interesting before the twist

Gaith

Gaith

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So I watched Shutter Island over the weekend, which is (temporarily?) on Netflix streaming, and rather liked the first half. Spoilers follow.

So the basic set-up, I was pleasantly surprised to see, has a strong sci-fi vibe: DiCaprio's federal marshall suspects that the asylum's patients are being used as guinea pigs for brainwashing technologies. What's more, the atmospheric touches - an isolated New England area removed from the improvements of modernity, a reclusive society that even loosely-connected others are loathe to discuss, weather disturbances and nightmares - are really quite Lovecraftian. Granted, the trope of evil asylum doctors exploiting their helpless and sometimes innocent charges is an old and hoary one, but the over-the-top direction and references to the HUAC went a long way towards justifying its use.

But eventually The Truth is revealed: DiCaprio really is crazy, the asylum and those that run it actually are as benevolent as they claim to be (if not more), and, though our protagonist is sent off to an (ultimately merciful) lobotomy, the fact that he was all wrong means that society at large lives more or less happily ever after.

What a letdown! I liked the crazy conspiracy story much better than some overcooked psychological mumbo-jumbo with its too-cute anagrams and A Beautiful Mind-like puzzles. Was anyone else similarly disappointed by the story's pivot away from sci-fi-horror? :p
 
I was disappointed more by the fact I was able to guess the ending from the trailer. With all the strange visions he was having (and the fact he was visiting an insane asylum), it seemed pretty obvious he would end up being one of the patients in the end.

I kept hoping the movie would veer off in a more original and unexpected direction, but nope, turns out that's all there was.
 
The "twist" came from the novel. The novel used enough historical research to really help the reader suspend disbelief. The conspiracy was much scarier than the protagonist being crazy. As I recall, the movie not only went off in a less scary direction, but ended in the "threat" that DiCaprio would escape. But emotionally it played like he was just too bad ass to lose. The covert pleasure in this really weakened the finish, which really didn't make much sense thematically if it wasn't a tragedy.

Or maybe I just can't remember very clearly. Visually the movie was very well made, but a director doesn't really add that much to a script.
 
Yeah, the twist was very predictable; you could see it coming from a mile away. The only thing interesting was HOW would it play out. It's certainly a very sad story, and I found the family tragedy very moving. But really, it's nothing more than a very well filmed melodrama. As a "psychological thriller," it doesn't work that well and ends up being just average.

I thought all the actors did a great job but the structure of the film is a bit too heavy-handed. It's an OK film and very entertaining---well, very tragic and sad, really---but at the end of the day, it's nothing special.
 
An argument could be made that he really was a cop that was trapped on the island and just made to think that he was a patient.
 
The twist wasn't just predictable it's pretty much the only way to explicate the story. Either he's crazy or the movie just doesn't make any sense. Still, the fear of being insane is one of the most dangerous and interesting ones for these kinds of movies, I enjoyed it a lot.
 
The movie was pretty torpid, I thought. Even if there was a better twist I'm not sure it'd have made up for the awful pacing.
 
Gaith said:
Kegg said:
Either he's crazy or the movie just doesn't make any sense.
Click to expand...
But I'm proposing a different script in which he's not crazy, and everything he believes does make sense. ;)
Click to expand...
In that case, though, you couldn't just ditch the twist - you'd need a very different film altogether. So much of the film is specifically geared towards the reveal. For example, the casual contempt one of the doctors there has towards DiCaprio's character when he's asking questions, and the unstable attitude he has when he does so.
 
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