End Games: Waking Up from the Nightmare of 'Shutter Island'

Welcome to End Games, a new feature in which I discuss some of my favorite—and least favorite—endings in film history. There will be spoilers, obviously.

Twist endings are boring. Also, they’re easy. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a shocking twist when done well, but typically the later a reveal comes in a film the more likely it is to be a cheap cop out. It’s more interesting when the twist comes in the middle of the story, and then the rest of the movie is spent dealing with the ramifications of this new information. Finding out that everyone was a double agent ghost terrorist the whole time does not inherently create good drama. It’s much more interesting to see how that affects the characters and their decisions going forward.

If a movie is going to include a last-second twist, then it’s important to make sure the rest of the movie earns that moment. That requires a lot of discipline on the part of the filmmakers, and it’s up to them to structure the movie so that it makes complete sense within both the story and the themes of the piece as a whole. One film that I feel accomplishes this is Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, which I rewatched recently and I was surprised to discover just how well-constructed a film it actually was. I was also surprised to see just how freaking weird it is, and it might be one of the strangest movies to ever make over $125 million domestically. It’s an unnerving work, and it features so many disconcerting cutaways and nightmarish interludes that it barely feels like a mainstream piece of filmmaking at all.

If it does have a glaring flaw, it’s that maybe Scorsese poured the creepiness on a bit too thick. Before the audience gets a chance to situate themselves they’re hearing the blaring sounds of “Symphony No. 3: Passacaglia” over the soundtrack, and nothing outwardly creepy has happened yet. If nothing else, Shutter Island seems like a movie that Scorsese had almost too much fun making. He’s so used to making earthly gangster movies that he probably jumped all over the chance to make something that even slightly resembled a horror film. Ultimately, it’s not really a horror film. It’s based on a book by crime/mystery novelist Dennis Lehane, and it doesn’t really feature ghosts or anything terribly paranormal. Scorsese just decided to take the material and put it in the creepiest package he could possibly imagine.

However, by the time the ending comes around, his methods actually start to make sense. Most of Shutter Island should feel like a horror movie, because in the mind of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Teddy Daniels, he is in the middle of a horror movie that is playing out in his own head. When they sail on to the island at the outset of the film, the terror of the soundtrack is probably very similar to the terror being felt inside Teddy’s mind. As the film goes along, Teddy fabricates an entire conspiracy that justifies his fear of the island and Ashecliffe Hospital. This isn’t an institution filled with doctors trying to help him break through and recognize his true identity of Andrew Laeddis. Ashecliffe is a house of horrors, and everyone there is trying to kidnap him and keep him on the island for eternity.

Here is one reason why the twist ending of Shutter Island is effective: if you view the entirety of the film a second time knowing how it ends, you suddenly find yourself seeing everything from the point of view of the doctors. And it makes complete sense. Scorsese throws in many touches throughout the film that reveal the truth behind the story of Teddy Daniels, and the only way this film hides this is by presenting everything through the filter of Teddy’s mind. The action that plays out onscreen completely checks out when viewed from either perspective. This is true even from the opening scene. Upon first viewing, Teddy is walking onto an island that seems to be hiding something. The second viewing presents things differently: Teddy is a dangerous man walking onto an island full of people that are terrified of what he might do.

For much of its 138-minute running time, Shutter Island feels like the film equivalent of white noise. There are so many conflicting theories and realities crashing into each other that nobody ever really knows what’s going on. Teddy is clearly a tortured soul from the beginning, but as time goes on he becomes even more corrupted than he already is. He, of course, blames his increased craziness on anything but himself. He believes the doctors on the island must be poisoning him, and luckily he is able to conjure up a fake Rachel Solando (Patricia Clarkson) who stops by only to justify his paranoia. Then, when he finally breaks into the lighthouse to expose all the atrocities committed on Ashecliffe, everything snaps right into focus.

The climax of Shutter Island may feel like an example of the rug being pulled out from under the audience, but instead it is simply an explanation of all that has been seen so far. For two hours we have been wandering around in the dark, but in the third act all is illuminated. This isn’t a movie interested in pure “oh, sh*t!” moments, or else Scorsese probably would have made his climax much more energetic than it is. What’s so eerily impactful about it is how deliberately everything is revealed. Ben Kingsley’s Dr. Cawley isn’t just dumping the truth on Teddy, but instead he’s trying to reach him and connect with him. Since the audience has been seeing everything through Teddy’s eyes, in a way he’s trying to reach us too. Throughout this whole trip, we have been deceiving ourselves just as Teddy has been deceiving himself.

Shutter Island doesn't just throw this twist out there and then hit the credits, but instead it goes a couple steps further. Most movies might have simply hinted at the day when Andrew/Teddy’s family died, but this film shows it to us in as upsetting a fashion as possible. Scorsese does away with much of the showy cinematics that came before, and has no interest in obscuring the truth any more. This is precisely what happened. Andrew came home to find his wife had drowned his children, and then he shot her. That’s all there is to it. It very quickly becomes easy to see why Andrew might have created this very elaborate fiction. It’s much easier to take than the truth.

This all leads to the very last scene, which isn’t discussed as much as the climax that precedes it but is equally as important to understanding the film as a whole. Andrew/Teddy sits on the steps of the asylum, and when Mark Ruffalo’s Dr. Sheehan comes up to talk with him it appears as though there has been a regression. Andrew once again refers to himself as “Teddy,” and he acts as though he has slipped back into his false reality. As Andrew leaves for his lobotomy, he turns back to Sheehan and says the following:

“Which would be worse? To live as a monster, or die as a good man?”

This calls into question just how real this final regression was. Does Andrew once again believe he is Teddy Daniels? Or did he say this willingly so that he can be lobotomized and freed of his demons? Shutter Island is, by and large, a nightmare of a movie that spends much of its time inside the mind of a lunatic, and it expects the audience to accept this as reality. However, when the truth really comes out, the nightmare that came before seems to be a whole lot more comforting. Many people will do whatever they can to hide from past traumas. For Andrew Laeddis, this meant becoming another person entirely.