Comments on: Why Shutter Island Didn’t Work: Audience Expectation

By: Monica

Monica — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 06:48:20 +0000

In reply to Monica.

Just a quick follow up about this. I spoke with someone recently who had read the book, and she indicated that it was definitive in the book that he was a crazy patient – it was not that he was really an FBI agent who was duped into thinking that he was crazy, but rather a crazy person playing that he was law enforcement. This is what I took away from the film.

However, your point is well taken still. Perhaps the people who actually liked this movie didn’t understand it, either. It reminds me of when I went to see “The White Ribbon” and found it so wholly devoid of content that I spent hours brainstorming viable alternative content that one may well have read into the film. I came up with some pretty interesting viable alternatives, but then my friend just said, ‘No, Monica. You just have to accept that there was no mystery there. It sucked.’

By: Monica

Monica — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 18:27:23 +0000

In reply to Lonnie.

Hey, Lonnie. Thanks for your comment. I see exactly what you’re saying – that you took away the other 50/50 scenario. That he was an actual agent that they were trying to make think was crazy. I think this was the red herring story. But actually this movie would have been much more interesting if he actually had been an agent who did think he was crazy, or going crazy, but then rebounded. But his emotional journey didn’t track with this story.

I felt it was fairly definitive that the war broke him and then returning home to a woman who killed their children pushed him over the edge. I’m forgetting the details now (blocked it out because it was so bad) but didn’t he kill the wife after she killed the kids and that was why they sent him to the loony bin? That story is pretty contained. They just cloaked it, to make it solidly a thriller (as opposed to a character drama), in the premise of his having fooled himself into believing he was the hero (FBI), when actually he wasn’t. He was the baddie.

By: Lonnie

Lonnie — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:52:52 +0000

Oh I soooo agree and so happy to have found your blog. This movie has actually haunted me since I saw it. So many people that it was fantastic and I did not, what was wrong with me? What did I miss? Scorsese and Leo, what a mix and a movie that makes you think with a plot twist, I should LOVE IT, but I didn’t. I thought maybe if I read the book, or watched the movie again I’d pick up on something but do I really want to go through the torture again? Not really. I did see the ended a bit differently than you did though, which I wanted to like but found way too many holes in the plot to make it work either way. I think there were a lot of hints to show that he was indeed a cop and very sane but came across the secret to the Island and was going to be admitted as crazy. There was a point that they said that if you are called crazy long enough then you will start to believe it (or something like that). There was also the patient (that seemed pretty sane) that warned him to get away but only after his “partner” left. There were many other clues but mostly the one about him being the most dangerous prisoner there, yet they let him off the island to act out this “therapy” and hope to cure him while having free range of the island. I don’t buy that. I think in the end, he is sane but knows he’ll never get off the island and chooses to die a hero as the cop he was than live as a monster which he would be if he admitted that he was the person they were turning him into and slowly go crazy. (I actually like this scene for that reason, maybe my favorite of the movie) I hope that this makes sense, however I believe the movie was left to make you “think” which way was it, was he really crazy, was he not? Either way I found way to many holes in the story to make either believable and that’s what I don’t like. I don’t mind a movie that leaves it up to you to decide, but fill in the holes. I feel that once the “twist” is out there, you should be able to go back and see how clever it all was (the sixth sense did this so well) but you can not do that here, at all. OK, I’ve rambled on long enough but really wanted to get that off my chest! 🙂 Thank you for your blog, I don’t feel so alone now! 🙂

By: Monica

Monica — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:05:48 +0000

In reply to pat. What can I say? Great minds think alike! I know a lot of people went to see this movie because it was big marketing, Scorsese and DiCaprio, based on the book, and people thought it was going to be cool. I don't know if I know many people who didn't think it was cheesy. It could have been more layered and nuanced, with more twists, but whatever. It wasn't. We're all ripe for a few new good thrillers with some real psychological turns. Get writing, people!

By: pat

pat — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:39:43 +0000

I couldn’t agree with you more. Everybody I knew who saw it told me how great it was and how amazing the “twist” was, but I found myself asking the exact same question as your friend. The first Act was so promising, and then it all fell apart. The exposition at the end particularly annoyed me. What a fucking cop-out.

I hadn’t picked up on the likeness it shares with The (much superior) Wicker Man until reading your post just now, and it makes me even angrier, because it points out just how good this film could have been if it had gone in the right direction.
I’ll admit, it had an atmosphere I quite enjoyed, though as with yourself it faded for me when Leo had his first dead wife dream.

COP-OUT!

By: 19 Hertz

19 Hertz — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 00:49:55 +0000

I just saw the movie myself. And it was pretty awful.

But I’d like to pick one point you may have missed out on. He thought of himslf as a monster because he believed he was responsible for his kids deaths because of his inaction. He knew his wife was loopy but he didn’t get her treatment.

That’s why he considered himself a monster & couldn’t live with it any more.

But in the end – the movie sucked big time.