Review: Shutter Island...Book and Movie

These are going to be short reviews because to talk too much about either would give away surprise plot twists.  Without further ado...

Shutter Island--Dennis Lehane

Synopsis:

Summer, 1954.

U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels has come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Along with his partner, Chuck Aule, he sets out to find an escaped patient, a murderess named Rachel Solando, as a hurricane bears down upon them

But nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is what it seems.

And neither is Teddy Daniels.

Is he there to find a missing patient? Or has he been sent to look into rumors of Ashecliffe?s radical approach to psychiatry? An approach that may include drug experimentation, hideous surgical trials, and lethal countermoves in the shadow war against Soviet brainwashing. . . .

Or is there another, more personal reason why he has come there?

As the investigation deepens, the questions only mount:

How has a barefoot woman escaped the island from a locked room?

Who is leaving clues in the form of cryptic codes?

Why is there no record of a patient committed there just one year before?

What really goes on in Ward C?

Why is an empty lighthouse surrounded by an electrified fence and armed guards?

The closer Teddy and Chuck get to the truth, the more elusive it becomes, and the more they begin to believe that they may never leave Shutter Island.Because someone is trying to drive them insane. . . .

My review:

Shutter Island is a first-rate thriller.  Dennis Lehane has succeeded in writing an atmospheric period piece that echoes the conspiracy theories and such that abounded after World War II and at the start of the Cold War.  The book draws you in and then pulls you along...quite willingly...to the shocking conclusion.  Along the way, the protagonists do not know who to trust and even begin distrusting themselves and each other.  More than just a mystery, Shutter Island is a master class on the workings of the human mind. 

Shutter Island...the movie.

My take:

Very seldom is there a movie that does not totally obliterate the book it is based on.  This is one of them.  Scorsese takes Lehane's book and makes a movie that is so very like the book, even large portions of dialogue are exactly the same.  DiCaprio is spot on as the detective who is trying to solve the mysterious disappearance while he wrestles with personal demons from his past.  All the performances are excellent, which I'm sure Scorsese has a hand in, as he is a fantastic director.  The movie may even one-up the book in being even more atmospheric (did I just say that?!).  Some of the critics out there have been less than kind, with which I totally disagree.  And I was shocked the other day when a newscaster on ABC World News Now gave away a major plot surprise!  Very badly done.  If you dislike the movie, say so, but do not give away the plot or at least give a spoiler warning!

Shutter Island...book and movie...definitely a must-read and a must-see!

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