Shutter Island

Few know how to do psychological thrill rides like Scorsese. Evoking (if not channelling) 1991′s Cape Fear, Shutter Island manages to pull off another thriller of extensive scope. Both films allow the score and the camera to set the tone almost entirely in many scenes, in others stripping the score away and returning to conventional camera work. The mixture of the two is put to work by the genius of Scorsese. Add to that masterful performances by living legends, and you have a classic thriller in the flesh.

In 1954, two U.S. Marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leo) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) come to Shutter Island to investigate the escape of a female patient/prisoner at a mental institution. They both look for clues, while Teddy wrestles his personal demons, a distressed history with his wife and memories of serving in World War II. As Teddy’s Now and his Then collide and mingle, the two are harder to distinguish, until Teddy is wrapped up in the mystery of the disappearing murderess in a way he hadn’t imagined.

DiCaprio is Scorsese’s current muse, in the way De Niro was in the 70′s. (It seems only fitting that their names should have such a similar structure.) Scorsese’s vision and Leo’s performance are so in sync, so well harmonized, that it seems as if one’s prescience is the other’s inspiration. They seem to lean on one another synergistically, and the result is another brilliant production, a film which both tells us an engrossing story and coaxes us into its turbulent maelstrom. Cape Fear and Shutter Island, lessons in thrill-making and emotional devastation, inform both the artist and the psychologist. (Only a very thin line seems to separate the two at times.)

Mark Ruffalo plays an earnest Chuck, and Ben Kingsley plays one of the head doctors on the island, each turning in fitting performances, depicting two men in one, willfully split personalities – personal fictions, a steady theme throughout the film. And, though minor, Jackie Earle Haley is fantastic as patient George Noyce. The acting, like the writing, is intentional, inventive, an extension of Scorsese’s imagination, a fusion of past and present.

We create for ourselves a reality that we can deal with – some are able to deal with more than others, some less, some only a strictly confined fantasy resembling reality only in its form, its construction. We build walls and fortify our mental village against intruders, sometimes at any cost. Scorsese knows this well, and this film is the evidence. A gripping story, pitch perfect acting, and the hands of a master. Shutter Island is the best film of the year so far.

Rating: 4/4 Stars