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

I didn't get the whole big deal about the ending. It was a great movie, the hints of him being crazy, of his wife killing the kids, of him being in denial, of never having a partner named Chuck... are all over the place. I don't want to say it was predictable, but all the answers are there, and he built up to it very well. It wasn't like his madness just came out of nowhere just to fuck with our mind. If people felt there was some things left unanswered, they just need to re-watch the picture.

WTF?

1) He wanted to "blow the roof off the place." because of the lobotomising.
2) Dr may have found out his intentions and decided to forge a plan not to let him leave the island.
3) The 'real' Rachel warned him, he had hallucinations but never THAT bad. They said the lighthouse thing was all in his head, even though there was a promiscuous shot of the lighthouse right at the end
4) When he was interviewing one of the cops in his investigation, Teddy asked about the lighthouse and the cop paused ans then said it was for sewage, when he went in they claimed it was just an empty lighthouse.

I felt like lots of things pointed towards him being sane.. I had loads when I first saw it, memory has faded a bit now though.

_His wife was bleeding from her stomach when he dreamt about her, and she was always wet "Why wet baby"
_The wife whispering to him "The killer is still here"
_Actually showing the past, when he first talks about his wife on the ferry (5 minutes into the movie)... they're definitely telling us that THERE's where our story's going.
_The whole fantasy/surreal way the whole building was shot, before entering it. It's like, they're entering a haunted house.
_He actually imagined 3 children: 2 boys, 1 girl. If there was not children in his mind, he would've dreamt about silhouettes.
_When he was talking to this person in Bloc C, didn't you ask yourself "why is that crazy person so wise?"...

When you remember the story, the key shots were about his dreams and his period in the army. Nothing in these, didn't scream "insane" ...

Speaking of the army sequences...I didn't exactly understand how those fit into the movie. What am I missing?

It was all part of his made up fantasy world. He knew he experience something tragic, so he replaced with finding a concentration camp in his head.

Ah...ok. I suppose that makes sense.

Yup. That's where he imagined the girl and her mother dead. A girl, victim of the war, was accepted by his mind, and he thought that's where he should have saved her (what's triggering these visions).
And as a hero who liberated the concentration camps, Shutter Island was his next battlefield.

I think the signs in the film point more to a way to get you thinking about the movie enough to go see it again or buy it on DVD.

It was based on the book in practically every respect. The extra shots and extra dialogue is just achieving what the director and whoever else wanted to achieve... the sense of a twist after the twist. It is in this way that movies keep playing in your mind because you think you haven't found the answer yet. The story itself, as adhered to from the book, is simply the twist and nothing more.

You seem to be forgetting the entire point of the whole experiment: To make Teddy feel like he was really investigating a real incident. This would require involving certain figures in the scheme. Especially the guards, and certain other figures in the institute playing their role. If they had not been involved, they obviously would have just up and said "HEY! Get back in your cell you deranged fuck!"
You'll also notice that more towards the beginning of the movie, when Teddy is walking through the facility... people look at him knowingly. It's very easy to spot in several scenes... but you, as a first time viewer, don't notice it because you don't know the ending. Watch the movie again. You'll see things you missed.
Also, the range of ability an involved personnel can actually stick to the details is variable at best, and this is one of the reasons I liked the movie is because they stuck to the human aspect where one knows what he's "supposed to say" but can make an error. The movie uses this error to create what you're now sodomizing as an ending that only exists in your mind... because that's what makes money after the fact.

Hmm, well another one, if it's role play why did the woman whilst doing role play write RUN. I think I believe he's sane because there are some clues that point to that and I want him to be sane.

His wife said if you go into the lighthouse it will be the end of you, she was right. His first dream, when he wasn't pumped up with Cawley's pills, he dreampt about her in a building that was burning down..

It seemed like, how many patients were in there? How can you do role play for ONE person, fake guards wasting their time outside a lighthouse guarding it.

The children thing did confuse me, he had 2 boys 1 girl, why did he only focus on the 1 girl? When Dr Cawley showed him the pictures he said "you should know this one" (or something along them lines, memory has faded a bit.)

I actually watched the movie again like, the day after. I went through it and noticed little things in every scene that pointed towards him being sane. But then again.. I had the mentality he was sane, so I was looking things to back up rather than looking for things to prove me wrong. Like I said in the other post, role play for ONE patient?

I believe Dr Cawley put the seed in Teddy's mind about the killing and drowning of kids right from the start.

I agree with that idea. My head is still spinning from watching it!

I definitely think that he is insane. Up until the very end I thought that maybe they all really were out to get him, tricking him in to believing that he had lost his mind. But I think that the very end clarifies that for the viewers. They show him remembering everything about his wife and family, essentially watching the role play of the entire movie work on him. But then the end scene he has already lost it again, thinking it was his partner not his doctor. Really great movie though!