Shutter Island

May I open this one with a great big SPOILER ALERT.
Then again, I think you're all pretty aware that I'm liberal with the details on this blog, so I don't know why I was compelled to do so. Moving on.

For a true beginning to this review, I'm going to lay it out there plain and simple: I expected a lot more from this film. I love Leonardo DiCaprio - I believe he's very talented - and I'm also a huge fan of Emily Mortimer. However, this movie definitely left something to be desired in multiple courts.

The Plot is my main concern. In fact, I think I may be experiencing the same kind of disenchantment with Shutter Island as many other people of my acquaintance experienced with Avatar: in the end, it did exactly what I expected it to, and so it was a let-down. I mean really. When the major plot twist, that the gung-ho main character is actually insane, gets predicted by someone in the room within the first half hour of the film, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark, and in this case it rank of someone failing miserably at trying to pull a Tyler Durden. I would rather have watched a hackneyed and predictable story about a bad-guy insane-asylum-gone-experimental-medical-facility post-World War II featuring a detective with post-traumatic stress disorder which, naturally, he then uses to solve the case and escape; the blind leading the blind, the traumatized spiraling into the insane in order to understand the insane and thereby gleaning a glimmer of truth to cling to. I would have adored that, run-on sentence and all. Eaten it up. But of course that's not how things seem to work right now. The only redeeming quality of the plot was the very end, the very conscious decision of Teddy/Andrew to commit mental suicide and be ice-pick lobotomized: "to die a good man" rather than "to live as a monster."

The other main aspect that I was disappointed with, honestly, was the score. It kills me to say so, as movie music is one of my favorite things in life, but there it is. Upon looking into it further, it kills me even more to see that the score wasn't original: it was hand-selected tracks from various classical sources! Oh Hollywood Gods, why do you do these things? [Give me a moment to compose myself.] I must give credit where credit is due: I desired the 'silence is more terrifying than sound' effect, and they gave it to me in spades (once I waited a while for it). However, my complaint, in light of the aforementioned discovery, is with the use of certain tracks. Every once in a while a piece would be chosen that just screamed that the film was trying too hard to be suspenseful and thereby ruined the entire setup. During the sequence wherein Teddy and Chuck are being driven to the compound on Shutter Island to work on their missing persons case, the music was so repetitive and over the top I actually laughed and said "I can'e even take this seriously right now." That same track happened at least twice more, and it totally pulled me out of the film. It became a parody of itself, and I cannot see how that could have been the intent for the piece. It did the song no credit, and it did the visual film no credit, either.

Because, dear readers, if you've even made it this far, I hate to bag on this film. I really do, and not least because the cinematography was brilliant. Stunning, even. The contrast in lighting between the waking hours on Shutter Island and Teddy's dreams of his home and wife were excellent. The stark lighting and bleached-out effect for every flash of lightning during the migraine scene was gorgeous, an almost poetic representation of the characteristic photosensitivity, as was the transition with every flash between that waking world and the dream world, witnessed only by brightness and the presence or absence of Teddy's five o'clock shadow and subtle beard. The devastatingly still sequences of Teddy's flashbacks to the war and the concentration camps were exquisitely horrifying, and beautiful because they were so. But by far my favorite shot caused a reference I can only hope was intentional: Teddy's wife, during one of his dreams, is pictured standing at the window with her back to him. At this point in the film it is an accepted idea that she was killed when their apartment was set ablaze by an arsonist. In this shot where she lingers at the window, her back is cut away so to speak, to reveal that she is hollow and made of a charcoaled log with still-glowing lines of ember. In several traditions, Faery or Elfin women, as well as some dryads, are described as beautiful women having holes in their backs which reveal that they are hollow and made of wood. The use of this image in Shutter Island was not only well done, it was striking, worked gloriously in the context of the story as well as in that of the nightmare, and ultimately demonstrated Teddy's idealistic view of his wife: as a beautiful, even supernatural creature beyond the bounds of humanity and thereby beyond the bounds of mortality. It reflected his inability to let her go using mythological connotation with a twist of logic. It was brilliant.

And to touch on the performance itself, there was not a single actor who I found lacking in skill or conviction. I continue to be impressed with both Leonardo DiCaprio and Emily Mortimer. I was also very impressed by Ben Kingsley and Mark Ruffalo. There was no lack of talent or fervor in the cast, and I commend them for making the most of that which they were given. It was only that which they were given that I had quips with.

So, in short, overall I was disappointed. I feel that this had potential to be much more than what it was, especially with the visual brilliance displayed throughout the film. But, I think now that I have detained you for long enough.