Shutter Island

This is a film that practically demands a second viewing, to be watched again but this time with the benefit of hindsight. OK, so the viewer realizes early on that all is not as it seems but the "why" takes a little longer to work out. Is Teddy Daniels correct when he suspects there's a conspiracy to cover up events on Shutter Island? Or is it his own mental instability and paranoia that are warping his perceptions? And if we don't have complete faith in our hero, how much of what we see through his eyes can we trust? The paranoia starts to spread outwards to the audience. Right from the start something doesn't feel quite right. Both the mise en scene and the music verge on the overwrought, and Teddy's dreams have a disconcertingly concrete vividness that breeds further mistrust in the stability of the image and what is "real". Likewise, Mark Ruffalo's performance as Teddy's partner feels ever so slightly off but it's difficult to say why (is it the slight smile? the clumsiness with his gun? the way he calls him "boss"?) And are the psychiatrists as sinister as Teddy suspects or is that just his paranoia and loathing of Germans? When the penny finally drops and the normal world comes back into focus, the urge to reassess everything we've seen so far is irresistible. The ending contains one final enigma but it's one that almost gets lost in the flood.