By Steve W. Schaefer
Lake Oconee Breeze
LAKE OCONEE — “Shutter Island”
Rated R for disturbing violent content, language and some nudity.
Much beloved film director Martin Scorsese brings us Shutter Island, a mega-sensory overdose of a psychological thriller wrapped in layers of 1950s noir and a heavy use of alternating scenes of dazzling color and multiple shades of gray — with asylum Gothicism, a set seemingly designed by M. C. Escher, and a meticulous use of detail — in costumes, make up, and delicious eccentricities of acting acrobatics.
Shutter Island is so visually rich, I considered submitting to colonics treatment; but worry not: I didn’t.
Leonardo DiCaprio, a Scorsese favorite, always looks to me like a post-pubescent child actor. In Shutter Island, he plays a WWII veteran, a liberator of Dachau, and a Federal Marshal named Teddy Daniels. As much as he makes me think of Lassie’s best pal, Timmy, I still liked him. He made the role work.
We first see the Marshal getting seasick while on a ferry to Shutter Island. On this island is a prison for the criminally insane. Daniels’ partner, Chuck Aule, is played by Mark Ruffalo. They are investigating the disappearance of a woman who allegedly drowned her three children. She can’t get off the island but she apparently vanished into thin air or so claims the chief psychiatrist, played exuberantly by Ben Kingsley.
There is another psychiatrist at the institution, a mysterious fellow with a German accent, played by Max von Sydow. Max’s accent raises Marshal Daniels’ suspicion; Nazis hiding in plain sight, you know.
In fact, Marshal Daniel is suspicious of a lot of things. But who can blame him? He has had a hard life. His wife died in an apartment fire. The person who set fire to the apartment got away to kill again and the Marshal would like to track the killer down…and (melodramatic music) he just might be on Shutter Island.
But there are others on the island…including apparitions of the Marshal’s dead wife. She even talks to him, gives him hints about his investigation. But it is torture for him. But so are his memories of Dachau. In fact, the Marshal is haunted by a lot of memories and souls, both alive and dead.
From the very first scene, we, in the audience, have a lot of suspicions too. The guards act oddly, the staff act very oddly, and the inmates act very, very, very oddly. Perhaps the inmates are in control of the asylum; perhaps not.
Without a doubt, the story starts unsettlingly and gets even weirder and weirder. After a while, I began to wonder if I have fallen down a rabbit-hole of a plot. But I know the author of the novel (upon which this movie is based) is Dennis Lehane, whose book was tuned into Mystic River. (He is also an Executive Producer of Shutter Island.) Therefore, I will give him, and his story, the benefit of the doubt.
I was not let down. I loved Shutter Island. As I alluded to earlier in this review, the film is more than idle entertainment. It is a film fan’s genre rush. It is decadent and overindulgent. Two hours and eighteen minutes long and yet, I never felt compelled to take a restroom break or dash out for a drink and a bag of popcorn. It is like a slice of red velvet cake with a wedge of cheese cake on the side.
Let me be clear: Shutter Island is exactly what I have described. It is noir, gothic, and, therefore, disturbing. It will be loved more by art film critics than by the general audience. It will upset Grandma and will give little tykes nightmares. Keep them off Shutter Island .
However, if Hitchcock were alive today, this is a film he would make. And that is an immense compliment. I shuddered on Shutter Island.
“Shutter Island” deserves a chilling four and a half bow ties out of five.
