Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
2/20/10
As a public figure, I can't
imagine how anyone could dislike Martin Scorsese. After humbly enduring
a Susan Lucciesque awards show losing streak that lasted most of his career,
he's proven to be just as gracious a winner and an engaging public speaker.
He's the passionate public face of film preservation, a cause any film
buff has to get behind, and he joined the late Sydney Pollack to do a pair
of utterly hilarious “please silence your cell phones” ads I could never
get enough of when they showed in theaters a few years back. He just
comes across as everybody's movie grandpa, and as such I really wish I
was as fond of his body of work as everyone else seems to be. But
the 70's independent film style he helped to pioneer has never been a personal
favorite, and while I liked his Oscar-winning blockbuster The
Departed, I didn't love it. But with his latest, the Taxi
Driver auteur and I are on the same page: Shutter Island
is a gripping puzzle box meditation on the nature of sanity sporting another
great performance by his reigning leading man of choice, Leonardo DiCaprio.
He leads a tremendous cast that brings this dark, dark thriller to life,
and the precision with which Scorsese directs in his first outing as an
Academy Award Winner is impressive indeed.
In 1954, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo
DiCaprio) is a US Marshall assigned with his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark
Ruffalo) to investigate a mysterious disappearance on Shutter Island, a
one-of-a-kind mental institution where the only patients are violent criminals
under the care of Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley). One of those patients
(Emily Mortimer), who drowned her three children and now lives in a fantasy
world where they are all still alive, somehow slipped out of a locked room
and escaped the facility without anyone seeing her. A hurricane is
approaching, and while Cawley and his colleague Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow)
frustrate Teddy's investigation at every turn, he begins to have haunting
visions of his WWII service and the death of his wife (Michelle Williams).
She perished in a fire set by a man (Elias Koteas) who Teddy has traced
to Shutter Island, and as the storm locks them in with no way back to the
mainland, he confides in Chuck that he believes sinister things are happening
here: mad experiments underwritten by the McCarthy Era House Un-American
Activities Committee. It's clear that all is not as it seems, and
when Chuck vanishes, a fateful meeting with a mysterious woman (Patricia
Clarkson) may hold the key to Cawley's plans for Teddy.
Based upon a novel by Dennis
Lehane (the dark bard of Boston whose Mystic River and Gone
Baby Gone were also turned into excellent films), Shutter Island
puts Martin Scorsese in a firmly modern genre (the puzzle box/twist thriller)
which he approaches in a thoroughly old-school manner. The institution
is a three-part Old Dark House on a sinister, rain-swept island that hides
dark mysteries around every corner. And by favoring long, slow shots
filled with dimly-lit corners and carefully rationed glimpses of madness,
Scorsese makes Shutter Island a truly forbidding cinematic location.
A booming score constructed entirely out of classical pieces creates an
awesome 50's-era atmosphere because it sounds just like the movie music
of the time. There are precious few “boo!”s here, although I did
jump a couple times, but rather a seriously impressive sense of looming
dread. Teddy's dreams are all the more disturbing because they include
no quick flashes or cuts, just total commitment to a nightmare world.
On a thematic level, Shutter
Island is mostly concerned with the question of how we know that we're
sane. And once you let the notion that you might be insane into your
head, how can you ever truly disprove it? Teddy has seen enough of
the world, having helped to liberate a Nazi death camp and witnessed things
in his wife's death that slowly become clear throughout the movie, to know
that the wildest conspiracy theories a crazy man could dream up could also
be real if someone insane was calling the shots. The screenplay by
Laeta Kalogridis methodically sets up two possible interpretations of reality,
one of which fits the Official Story, the other of which can't really be
disproven because if Everyone's Out To Get Teddy, well, then anything is
possible. And the conviction with which both possibilities remain
alive even through to the movie's final line, which shows that Teddy is
prepared to act upon his belief in one of those realities without really
committing to which one he's referring to, shows a remarkable attention
to the small details. Less adventurous moviegoers might be frustrated
by the challenging third act, but a twist movie that allows for the possibility
that the real twist might be that there really isn't one is quite a high
wire act to pull off.
DiCaprio effectively summons
a dusting of a Boston accent, then does a great job becoming more and more
unhinged as the pressure mounts. Ruffalo makes a great “sure, whatever”
sidekick for such an intense guy, while Kingsley's scholarly condescension
is just right for a role that's not quite as pat as it seems (or is it?).
Williams is terrific in a role that calls upon her to seem like a walking
fever dream before a big flashback at the end that's beyond creepy.
Mortimer is also wonderfully, persuasively insane.
Shutter Island is
the kind of movie actors love because even the small roles provide wonderful
showcase scenes. Every moment Clarkson is on-screen is pivotal and
she's saying something shocking. Ted Levine, as “The Warden” has
a beautifully ambiguous conversation with Teddy that can be taken two different
ways, neither of them good. Von Sydow similarly spars with the investigator/prisoner
in a memorable exchange where they accuse each other of being Nazis and
madmen, respectively. And Jackie Earl Haley gets a great, grueling
scene as a patient who tells Teddy everything he needs to know, if only
his admonitions didn't work equally well whether he's paranoid or they're
really out to get him.
The movie looks terrific,
thanks to Robert Richardson's crystal clear cinematography and Scorsese's
great sense of not just where to point his camera but how to move it for
maximum effect. Dark, creepy and full of reasons to turn it over
and over in your head, Shutter Island is a great grown-up horror
movie. And a nice chance for me to get on Team Scorsese for a change. |
