Shutter Island: Book and Movie Review
Payton Shiver
March 3, 2010
Filed under A & E
A mind-game soaked through with psychological creepiness, Shutter Island written by Dennis Lehane is a thriller any Agatha Christie or Stephen King fan would love.
Set in the year of 1954, the main character, U.S Marshal Teddy Daniels, is given the task of checking into Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, located on Shutter Island. Teddy is told that a patient, Rachel Solando, has escaped and is loose somewhere on the island, despite being locked in a cell under constant surveillance.
On the ferry from Boston, Daniels is given a new partner, Chuck Aule. After exchanging the stories of their painful pasts, the men create a trusting bond. Teddy lost his wife in a fire caused by a pyromaniac and Aule was subject to ridicule for having a relationship with a Japanese American woman. Upon arriving on the island, ominous storm clouds foreshadow a deadly hurricane which creates a more sinister setting for the two Marshals to investigate in.
After meeting the odd Dr. Cawley who denies the men access to personnel files, the Marshals have a sinking feeling they have been stonewalled by the entire government facility. As the hurricane gales increase, so does the intensity. Hints of secret radical experiments and horrifying surgeries surround the weird Dr. Cawley. Teddy Daniels is having weird flashbacks and hallucinations of his dead wife. Rachel Solando is suddenly found without a scratch on her and no recollection of where she has been for the past few days. When Daniels’s partner Chuck disappears, Teddy feels a new sense of urgency: to find his partner and expose the hospital for what it is. Scared by the idea that he has been fed psychotropic drugs and completely freaked out by his dreams of when he was in the war, Teddy begins running for his life.
New York Times calls Shutter Island, “Startingly original…Instantly cinematic.” People Magazine also foreshadows, saying, “If you like books that will make great movies, then this one is for you.”
While the book was disturbing and mind-blowing enough, the movie’s deep, scary tunes and creepy cells containing unnerving inmates will stick with you long after the credits have rolled.
Earning four out of five stars from People Magazine, a 67% rating from Rotten Tomatoes, and staying on top at the box office for two weeks in a row, Martin Scorsese’s movie version of Shutter Island was an overall extremely good movie. It is rare that a movie follows the book it is based on closely. Surprisingly enough, I found no loopholes or main ideas suppressed or ignored throughout the movie. The four stars were well deserved.
Lehane throws in one mind-bending plot twist after another, right until the very last sentence. Director Scorsese paints a haunting picture for his audience that makes readers wander into the depths of their own often unexplored minds. Shutter Island makes us all reconsider exactly what one is capable of. Dennis Lehane creates a world in which everyday occurrences such as gangs, drug lords, and poverty pale in comparison to the never-sleeping psyche of the workings of the human mind.
