Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is one of the legendary film-maker’s most provocative movies. Buoyed by a stunning performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island culminates in a twist ending is emotionally devastating and so complex in its execution that it demands a second viewing.
There is some discussion that Shutter Island is straight-forward after it reveals the trick pulled at the psychological facility to try and treat DiCaprio’s Andrew Laeddis for his profound condition. But there remain significant questions and room for interpretation. Having invented the secondary persona of Teddy Daniels as a trauma response after the death of his wife, Andrew is allowed to play through his fantasy in the name of a breakthrough. And the disturbing one-two punch of Shutter Island‘s ending reveals that while “cured”, Andrew seemingly chooses to embrace his fantasy to free himself of his trauma.
Shutter Island Explained: What Happens & What It Means
The theories about Shutter Island being some secret government facility – or the doctors “getting to” Teddy Daniels by the end of the film are simply off the mark. DiCaprio’s character is actually Andrew Laeddis (a.k.a. patient 67), a disturbed inmate of Shutter Island who killed his wife, and who the doctors are trying to rehabilitate. Teddy’s investigation of the island is actually an intricate role playing game designed by Dr. Cawley (Sir Ben Kingsley) and Teddy’s partner “Chuck” (Mark Ruffalo), who is actually Teddy’s primary shrink, the “missing” Dr. Sheehan.
Cawley and Sheehan are the more sympathetic doctors, who believe that with therapy and compassion madness can be cured in someone like Andrew Laeddis. On the other hand, Dr. Naehring (Max von Sydow) and the Warden (Ted Levine) believe that guys like Andrew are too unstable and violent for a therapeutic solution; strapping patients down and drugging them (in some cases lobotomizing them) are the solutions Naehring and the Warden believe in.
The role playing game is set into motion in order to give Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan one last chance to prove that Andrew Laeddis can be pulled out of his “Teddy Daniels” fantasy and will accept the reality of his trauma: that his wife Dolores (Michelle Williams) was mentally ill and murdered their children, and that he, Andrew, murdered her in retaliation. Andrew feels guilty because he knew of his wife’s depression for a long time – but due to his own issues with drinking and post-traumatic stress after his experiences in WWII, Andrew never acknowledged the extent of her problems and it cost him his children.
Shutter Island: Who Is George Noyce? Is He Real?
Jackie Earle Haley’s character, George Noyce, is a fellow patient who knew Teddy/Andrew in the asylum. Noyce is presented as a “repeat offender” who ended up back on Shutter Island and fed Andrew conspiracy theories for his fantasy. Or that is Andrew’s warped perception of the situation. In reality, when George Noyce says he’s only in Ward C because of Teddy and he’ll never get out again, there are some questions that need to be addressed.
- If George was a victim of Andrew’s violence, why was he locked up with the most dangerous patients?
- Was George included as a part of the “game” he tells Teddy he’s trapped in by the doctors in order to help Andrew’s fantasy play out?
What is known is that one day Noyce called “Teddy” by his real name, Laeddis, causing a psychotic outburst where Andrew savagely beat him up. That assault is what caused Dr. Naehring and the Warden to push for Laeddis to be lobotomized, causing Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan to create the role play game as a last-ditch effort to cure Laeddis. But that doesn’t explain the treatment of George Noyce himself, which seems to have a nefarious undertone.
Ultimately, Noyce is real, but Andrew’s backstory for him is part of his delusional fantasy: he creates the idea of him as a nice college kid who murdered three men as a result of being experimented on as part of a psych study. In reality, Noyce is a patient, whose backstory is unrevealed, and the truths he tells Teddy about experiments are actually true, but not in the way Teddy believes. George Noyce tells Andrew the truth, to warn him that the doctors are trying to cure him by feeding his fantasy, but Teddy misreads them as evidence of Shutter Island’s true dark meaning as an institution.
Shutter Island’s Rachel Solando, The Law of 4 And Patient 67 Explained
Shutter Island‘s law of 4 has to do with the anagram names Andrew invents for his fantasy world. “Edward (Teddy) Daniels” is an anagram of “Andrew Laeddis” and “Rachel Solando” is an anagram of “Dolores Chanal,” the maiden name of Andrew’s dead wife. Four names, get it? As for patient 67: Andrew Laeddis IS patient 67. As long as “Teddy Daniels” is looking for patient 67 he’ll never be able to find him, and his fantasy will be sustained.
“Rachel Solando” is also a play on “Rachel Laeddis”, the name of Andrew’s dead daughter. His daughter is also the same little girl who shows up in his Holocaust dreams, saying, “You should have saved me,” which is Andrew’s mind trying to work through the trauma of what happened. His daughter represents the truth – she’s the one thing Andrew can’t deny or forget. The nurse Dr. Cawley has pose as Rachel Solando is part of a therapy technique to get Andrew to remember his real wife – if you watch that scene again, the Cawley’s gamble almost works, but not quite. Andrew’s brain simply can’t handle the strain.
The Symbolism Of Fire And Water In Shutter Island
Fire is a symbol of Andrew/Teddy’s reality in the movie. If you watch closely, every time Teddy is around fire – the matches he lights in Ward C, the fire in the cave with “Dr. Solando” and when he blows up Dr. Cawley’s car near the end – he suffers some sort of hallucination. Fire is the symbol of Andrew’s fantasy world.
In contrast, water (the opposite of fire) is the symbol of the reality of what happened to him. His wife drowns his children in water and it is water which makes Andrew so upset/uneasy/sick throughout the film. That’s why the scene with “Dr. Solando” takes place in the sea cave. She feeds the fantasy of the Shutter Island conspiracy as part of the “game” intended to free Andrew. It’s also why Andrew arrives on the island in a storm, by water – it’s the symbolic “arrival” from his traumatic past. Even the lighthouse operates as a symbol of what Andrew is going through, as it is so tied to navigating safely through dangerous waters.
Is Shutter Island A Government Mind Control Operation?
The whole “government mind control operation” is a red-herring Andrew Laeddis invents for his fantasy. It allows him to explain to himself over and over why he is at Shutter Island (investigating a conspiracy) and allows him to demonize the doctors and staff as threats or conspirators. The goal of Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan’s role play is to allow Andrew to see for himself how impossible and absurd his conspiracy theory is by actually letting him investigate it to its end. That’s why Dr. Sheehan/Chuck instigate Andrew’s wild theories while he and “Teddy” are stuck in that crypt during the hurricane (“While you were looking into them, they were looking into you!”) – Sheehan wants Andrew to play out his fantasy until he can see how impossible it is. That’s why nothing is in lighthouse at the end…
Why Andrew Pretends He’s Still Teddy In Shutter Island’s Ending
The ending of Shutter Island seems ambiguous to many people, but on second viewing, it’s pretty clear-cut. Teddy wakes up to the reality that he is actually Andrew Laeddis, though he is warned by Dr. Cawley and Dr. Sheehan that he has regressed into his fantasy world before. However, Andrew is smart: When Dr. Sheehan sits with him on the steps that next morning, Andrew knows that the doctors and Warden are observing his behavior. The thing is, his guilt and pain are still so heavy that he knows he cannot live with them; rather than live with the knowledge of his pain, he chooses to pretend that he is still Teddy Daniels and let them lobotomize him, so that he can finally be free of his burden. He chooses to “die a good man.”
Shutter Island Explained: What It Really Means
In Shutter Island‘s ending, Andrew delivers a line to Dr. Sheehan about ‘living as a monster, or dying as a good man.” Ultimately, Andrew would rather be mind-wiped as “Teddy Daniels” than live with the sins of Andrew Laeddis. In that respect, Shutter Island is a complex study of grief and trauma, and the lengths the human mind will go to in order to medicate itself from harsh reality.
Guilt and hurt are what cause Andrew to invent a secondary persona – one in which he is still a war hero and a federal Marshal named Teddy Daniels. Because he is intelligent, he invents an intricate mental narrative in which conspiracy theories about Shutter Island and a hunt for a patient who doesn’t exist keep him occupied with a mystery that he cannot (or refuses to) solve: that he is patient 67.
Shutter Island also meditates on violence, positioning Andrew Laeddis as a self-invented hero – a literal construct personified by Teddy Daniels – whose loss of control in the murder of his wife (and indeed in failing to stop the murder of his children) inspires him to create a situation where he is in full control. Teddy investigates the violence of the Shutter Island story – of Andrew’s own true story – through removal, refusing to accept the possibility of his own violence, which he rejects even as it faces him in the shape of George Noyce.
How Shutter Island’s Ending Is Explained By The Filmmakers
Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Ben Kingsley and Martin Scorsese have talked at great length about how difficult it was to film Shutter Island. The problem was that when they started shooting the film, they realized that upon first viewing the audience would have to believe that Dr. Cawley and Shutter Island could be something sinister, but upon second viewing you would have to be able to tell that everyone around Teddy is in on the role play game, and are trying to maintain the fantasy – though many of the staff and guards are not happy about it.
Upon viewing the film a second time and knowing how it ends, it becomes clear how good a job Scorsese and the cast did. It’s all too obvious that the other characters know that Teddy is Andrew’s unstable psychological construct, and here are a few tip-offs to help you see it:
- Watch the guards throughout the film. They get extremely edgy whenever “Teddy” is around, and clutch their guns a little tighter. This is especially true at the beginning when “The Marshals” come to the island. It’s because the guards know Teddy is a lunatic and they’re not exactly thrilled about the role play experiment. It’s also why they are less than enthused about looking for a Rachel Solando who doesn’t exist down by the ocean rocks.
- Pay attention to the staff interview scene. When Teddy and Chuck interview the nurses and orderlies it’s easy to see just how ridiculous the staff finds the interview. One nurse says something about how ‘far from normal’ their jobs are – she’s making an ironic joke because she’s talking to a lunatic dressed as a cop. In that scene, the staff are also not too enthused about the role play, and Dr. Sheehan / Chuck pushes them to answer Teddy’s questions. You’ll see what I mean.
- When Teddy interviews Mrs. Kearns, she talks about how great Dr. Sheehan is. There is a bit of awkward eye contact between her and “Chuck” because she’s talking about him! It’s also why she asks Chuck for water and he quickly accepts (it’s an awkward moment). Mrs. Kearns writes “run” on the paper she slips to Teddy because she knows he has an opportunity to escape while they’re doing the whole role play experiment. It’s also why she sounds “coached” about what to tell Teddy – she has been. As for the conspiracy about why Mrs. Kearns’ hand is empty when she goes to drink the water Chuck brings…she’s also a patient, let’s not forget that.
- The creepy lady in the yard at the beginning of the film does the “shush” motion at Teddy because she knows him, knows that she’s playing a game and has been instructed not to spoil it. She’s a disturbed patient enjoying a game, that’s all.
- When Teddy reveals to Dr. Naehring that he’s figured out the patient 67 riddle during a staff meeting, Naehring says “What are they doing here?” He’s genuinely annoyed that Dr. Cawley is letting Teddy/Andrew roam so freely.
- In Ward C Teddy is accosted by a loose prisoner and nearly strangles that prisoner to death. “Chuck” and a guard show up and drag the strangled man away. The guard tells Teddy that he can’t come along to the infirmary, while mumbling about how much trouble he’s going to be in – for letting a patient strangle another patient.
In the end, Shutter Island is a pretty clear-cut mystery – the straight forward reading might not be as fun as some of the conspiracy theories out there, but the evidence is all over the film. Still, isn’t it fun when a film sparks so much debate, discussion and imagination?
