“Don’t you get it? You’re a rat in a maze!” says George Noyce, an inmate (or patient as Ben Kingsley’s creepy Dr. Cawley stresses several times throughout the film) in Ward C, the maximum-security wing of this lovely asylum for the criminally insane, Ashecliffe. But, really, it’s US, the viewers, who are the real rats here. We are all just caught up in this game of where the Sixth-Sense-ish “twist” we were promised is going to show up.
It’s 1954 and US Marshalls Teddy Daniels (Leonardo Di Caprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), take us all off the ferry boat – the only way on, or off – and onto Shutter Island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rachel Solondo, But from the moment they (and we) step foot onto that island, nothing seems right.
Dr. Cawley is elusive and unhelpful, not allowing access to certain files. Solondo’s primary doctor left on the ferry that morning, even though his patient had almost literally vanished into thin air. Teddy starts suffering from serious migraines and has dreams of his time spent liberating Dachau and of his dead wife, played by Michelle Williams. Rachel’s cryptic message of “Who is 67?” leaves everyone wondering what is actually going on here?
While interviewing other patients at Ashecliffe, one of them scribbles RUN across Teddy’s notebook. Something is amiss here and Teddy, despite his head full of memories and migraines, wants to uncover it. Turns out he isn’t only there to find Rachel Solondo, the woman who drowned her three children but has no memory of it. No, Teddy is convinced Andrew Laeddis, the man who set the fire that killed his wife, is also on Shutter Island somewhere.
I don’t want to give away too much, but I will tell you that some of the plot twists and surprises were just not all that surprising, and my sister and I were pretty sure where the movie was going, but getting there was still just as suspenseful and satisfying. And Scorsese (with the help of Dennis Lehane’s novel by the same name) builds deep, intense, and moving characters and places them against a visually stunning background.
And of course, now we want to go back and see it again, just to look for clues.
I can’t even watch the trailer without getting goose-bumps! NO way am I a going!
totally NOT! It was way more suspense/thriller than horror. It wasn’t horror at all! I don’t think the preview really gets that across all that well.
Was it nightmare scary?