Shutter Island: My Movie Analysis

A partial fulfillment in Psychology 101

By: Joey D. Bidan Jr.

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hutter Island is a Psychological thriller based on Dennis Lehane's novel of the same title. It is about U.S. Marshals, Edward "Teddy" Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, travelling to the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island located in Boston Harbor, as part of an investigation into the disappearance of patient Rachel Solando, incarcerated for drowning her three children.

For me, the film is intellectual and it ends leaving a psychological question of uncertainty to me because it is hard for me to tell which reality is true for Teddy. The film tackles psychiatric concepts like psychoactive drug experimentation, insanity, schizophrenia, reality confusion and even the controversial lobotomy.

At first, we are set to believe that Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a normal US marshall investigating a case but it was later on revealed that everything was just a fantasy orchestrated by Dr. Cawley in an attempt to apparently cure Teddy from his mental delusions but failed. Edward Daniels was actually Andrew Laeddis the 67th patient of Shutter Island jailed for the crime of killing her wife. Here, the film explains the concept of schizophrenia, a splitting of the mind making you believe that you are somebody else so that you could escape a frightening reality of your past. This is what Sigmund Freud refers to as “Identification”- our mind’s defense mechanism. In Teddy's case he believes he is Edward Daniels (an anagram or jumbling of his real name Andrew Laeddis) investigating a lost patient Rachel Solando (anagram of Dolores Channal name of his wife that he murdered) so that he could forget the reality the he killed Dolores, his insane wife for murdering their children.

Insanity is a very serious matter and every one of us fears of being mentally unhealthy. You see, the human mind is so complex that our concept of reality could be altered. When I said the film left me a question I was referring to the mention of Shutter Island's use of psychoactive drugs that the psychiatrists secretly place in wine, food and even in cigarettes so there is still a possibility that Edward Daniels is real and he may just be fooled to believe that he was Shutter Island's 67th patient because he was exposed to the psychoactive drug in his cigarette. The film is eerily script-written to leave that feeling of uncertainty.

Finally, what scared me most is the psychiatric or psychosurgical procedure of lobotomy which is the scraping of a part of your brain to cure you. Though this procedure is only suggested in this film, this is also shown in the movie, Sucker Punch where a normal girl was removed with emotions. Imagine a surgeon with a hammer driving a chisel right between your eyes deep into your brain. That part of the brain is the prefrontal cortex which is the brain's center for visuals and emotions. This controversial procedure has been found partly successful ever since it was invented in 1954. Some patients were cured of their insanity since their prefrontal cortex has been removed but the consequence is they act like zombies for the rest of their lives. Since the prefrontal cortex controls our emotions, without it our ability to emotionally react to certain situations is impaired. Imagine that.

In the end, I could say the movie is unforgettably original. Because of it, I just can't help thinking the possibility that, the reality I know now may not be true. I can’t help thinking I may not be an ACLC student but a mental patient somewhere out there.