Shutter Island

Today I watched the Leonardo DiCaprio film, Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scoresese. It is a psychological thriller set in the 1950s about a mental ex-U.S marshal Andrew Laeddis (DiCaprio) who creates a scenario in his mind that he is Edward "Teddy" Daniels. A federal agent who goes to secluded mental institute to find out about a missing patient Rachel Solando, but grows to believe he has stumbled upon a US government conspiracy of barbarically torturing patients to control their minds. Throughout the film the audience follow Daniels (DiCaprio) believing his life is reality as he looks for Solando, Laeddis and attempts to get into the lighthouse where he believes they are carrying out the experiments. The twist at the end then throws the audience as we discover all of it wasn't real and that Daniels who is actually Laeddis himself is a mental patient at the institute; who has created this situation and fake persona using parts, events and names in his own life, due to him not being able to come to terms with him killing his wife. All the staff at the institute played along only revealing it to him at the end when his suspicions aren't confirmed about the conspiracy in order to see if this would work as a cure for him. In the end although he realises and the audience see what really happened, it begins all over again in his brain for him, and he is taken away to have a lobotomy. This was a very effective psychological thriller as although he was not diagnosed as mental for a majority of the film the audience had an inkling that he was going mad through his hallucinations and dreams. Being in this mental institute built suspense as you never knew what these people were going to do especially when there was the break out, and with even the staff under suspicion, Daniels can trust no one.