Shutter Island ending *MAJOR SPOILER.*
 

What does everyone think about the ending? A few people I know agree with me, it was a mindfuck. Other's on here said yeah predictable ending.

I read Wiki and it basically said yeah Teddy was insane.

But I don't know if he was, I think his story seems pretty legit.

1. He was interesting in the island, took on the case.
2. Dr Cawley read his file and knew what his intentions were and had a plan to make him go mad.
3. If it was roleplay why did the mental woman he was interviewing write "RUN" on his book?
4. He had hallucinations, which says he is mad.. But when he was in the cave with the 'real Solando' she asked if he'd taken medication from the DR - he had. And she said have you at least smoked your own cigarettes? He hadn't.
Did he just imagine her and that whole conversation? Was she put there to lead him to the lighthouse?
5. Why would they empty the lighthouse to explain nothing is going on there.. and then put everything back and lobotomise him at the end?

Sane/insane?

I know the thread title says it, but ***BIG TIME SPOILER***

OK...I just saw this movie last night, and here is what I personally think the end was all about.

During the movie, Teddy (or Andrew, if you will) is in fact insane. This explains (to me) why Dr. Cawley would never let him have access to the personnel files, why the nurses and orderlies seemed disinterested and laughed at him in the beginning of the movie, and why the cops were just milling around instead of actually searching to a body when he first gets there. It was like Cawley said...it was a huge role play to get him to remember the truth. So at the end Teddy/Andrew realizes the truth, admits it to himself. But he's told that this happened 9 months previous, and he ended up regressing again. Sooooo...I think at the very end, he was in fact still sane, in his right mind. But knowing that he might have to go through it all again, he willingly submitted to get the lobotomy done. He pretended to have reverted back, so that they would give it to him. It's like the real/fake Dr. Solando said in the cave...once you get that operation, you have no memories, no emotions, etc. I think that's what he wanted. The comment about "Is it better to live as a monster, or die a good man" was telling, said to me that he was in fact in his right mind. As well as the fact that he willingly went with them at the end. Surely he would have put up a fight had he still been delusional, right?

Anyway, that's my two cents....

I thought he was sane and they were trying to mindfuck us. My friend disagrees with me however. Though... there is sufficient evidence for both outcomes to make sense though...

I think they made it pretty obvious by throwing that "live as a monster" line out at the end. He had dreams about his wife throughout that hinted at what she had done and what he had done. They said he had regressed once before, and I can see why. I wouldn't want to live with those memories. I'd probably invent a new reality as well.

The part that gave it away for me was when Teddy asked what was in the lighthouse to the police officer early on in the film, he paused and said it was something for sewage. When he was there later on in the movie, it wasn't.

After they convinced him he was infact insane and he did kill his wife, they showed the promiscuous shot of the lighthouse. Why did they do that? I thought the ligthouse was something for the sewage/empty?

Sane. The real Rachel in the cave said have you been taking your own cigarettes? He said no. At the start of the film, on the boat he said he lost his cigarettes, he was sure they were in his jacket. His partner Chuck offered him one of his cigarettes, when he got to the Island Dr Cawley gave him tablets.

Teddy knew what that place was doing in that lighthouse, went there to "blow the lid off the place" and Dr Cawley and Chuck devised a plan to stop him.

Ok...on the boat that was the first time he met his new "partner". Why would that be the first time they met? They were both on the same damn boat...even if they met the day of the trip over there, wouldn't it be sometime earlier than 2 minutes before arriving on the island?

They were feeding him meds because his behavior got more and more erratic and, well, insane the longer he went without them. He was, after all, still a patient there despite the role playing. They had to have a way to keep him on his medication.

I watched it a couple of weeks ago now so my memory is a bit jaded.

That's plausable, but wasn't one based in Seattle or something? Maybe they met on the morning of the dock on arrival to the Island for the first time?

What about the lies about the lighthouse? "It's for sewage" when he went there "It was empty" and then at the end of the film that promiscuous shot of the lighthouse which implies that Teddy was right about that place, yet they mindfucked him so much he just believed the story about him killing his wife. They put the seed of the wife killing in his mind from the moment he came on the island.

Read the book. He was insane.

Indeed it was. Actually most of Dennis Lehane's books are pretty decent and all the movie adaptations have turned out far better than most movies based on the books.

Even though the book says he's insane, don't you think Scorsese made the film in a way where he could be either? I think signs in the film point more to being sane