Shutter Island is an excellent film of which I have already made a review here. This criticism was made after my first viewing. But, now that I've had time to think about it a little and I've just seen it a second time, in full knowledge of the final reversal, I'll try to share with you my explanation of the end of the film, twist which I find extremely interesting because it's very rich in interpretations.
This article reveals the end of the film and the book, it is intended for people who have seen or read it.
First of all, I would like to make it clear that this interpretation only involves me. It was the one that seemed the most logical to me, given the doctor's explanations at the end of the film in the lighthouse. I still haven't read the book, so I certainly haven't been aware of some of the details, but I hope I have understood the essential points.
Another thing, I noticed that when you see the film twice, you really see two totally different films. As soon as we know that Teddy is crazy, and that he is in fact the 67th patient, every scene, every dialogue, and even the gestures and reactions of the characters, are perceived from a totally opposite point of view.
I would also like to come back to the number of patients. Some people don't understand why, at the end of the film, the doctor tells Teddy that he is the 67th patient (and not the 66th as some people claim). Indeed, knowing that Rachel Solando does not exist, they would be only 66 in all. However, we just have to keep in mind that when the doctor talks about 24 patients in block C and 42 patients in blocks A and B, he does not take Teddy into account, which is 67th. On the other hand, Teddy thinks he counts the 66 patients including Rachel, so there's a 67th one somewhere. And this is everyone's goal: to make him ask himself questions and realize that the 67th is him.
Indeed, we notice throughout the entire duration of the film that the patients, the doctors, and the psychiatrist (who pretend to be his teammate) do everything they can to make him realize who he really is. There is evidence of that, and I will outline it here. First of all, the word supposedly written by Rachel Solando refers to a 67th patient: Who is 67?. At that moment, the doctors and staff who, of course, put this paper here on purpose, pretend not to see any relation with the number of patients. Why? Why? Because Teddy has to make his own way, he has to understand for himself. But once he realizes that the paper speaks of a 67th patient, he makes absolutely no connection with himself, memory does not return to him, which seems logical. But during the rest of the film, everyone will try to make him realize who he is, in vain. Obstinate, he cannot see clearly or understand the efforts they are making to wake him up. In fact, the character of Rachel (allegedly disappeared) that Teddy thinks he will come to the island in the course of his investigation does not exist. However, the doctors created her, attributing to her the crimes of Teddy's wife: she would have drowned her three children in the lake and would have wanted them to have dinner anyway, which is exactly the traumatic fact that Teddy experienced and made her shut up and create a false reality. By recreating a patient who has the same antecedents as the drama that ruined Teddy's life, they intend to restore his memory and provoke a click that would bring him back to reason. But it still doesn't work. Another example is when this so-called escaped patient seems to be going crazy and thinks she sees Teddy as her husband. She hugs him in his arms, telling him that he is her husband, then shouting But my husband is dead, then WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?... It's a question Teddy takes in the middle of his head, obviously puzzled. But it's not enough for him to question himself.
All this is part of the doctor's plan, who wants to cure Teddy at all costs by psychoanalysis, by making him understand for himself that he invented a large part of his life. But he's not gonna make it.
Other clues are really well hidden, especially in the words and behaviour of certain characters. At first, it is believed that if doctors are afraid to speak to Teddy or to cross his eyes, it is because they have something to hide, that they want to lie to him. Which leads Ted to continue his paranoid delirium. They are afraid because he is the most dangerous prisoner in the hospital and they fear his behaviour. The same goes for one of the doctors who ends up facing him with a syringe full of sedative. Ted thinks it's to keep him from leaving the island, when it's just protection in case he attacks him. Finally, let's talk about his teammate, Chuck, who is actually his psychiatrist. Once you know who this man really is, all his actions take on a different meaning. He smiles regularly at the doctor, he has trouble removing his gun from his belt (because he's not a marshal), he tries to make Teddy wonder about himself. Questions like Who is Andrew Laeddis?
What's strong about this film is that at the first screening, we place ourselves from Teddy Daniels' point of view. Something that we can no longer do after understanding the outcome, since then we take a totally external viewpoint, as if we were also doctors, waiting to see our patient react. But that never happens, and it's pretty desperate. One scene in particular is an example. At one point, Teddy believes that the doctors want to make him their 67th patient, making him believe that he never had a partner and that he might be crazy. He thinks that he will be trapped, that everyone will make him look like a madman in order to transform him into a patient, and therefore a guinea pig for experiments. That's why the doctor and Teddy ask each one of them in turn: Which teammate? This is reinforced by the fact that Teddy meets a woman in a cave who asks her to flee, because they will use him as a madman. In fact, when you look at it from the other point of view (and it's totally awesome), you realize that with the question Which teammate?, the doctor just wants to make him realize that it's not his partner, that he's actually his psychiatrist. But he can't tell her directly yet, because it would be a failure. And the scenario is extremely well done because now we know that the woman in the cave is only a hallucination, that Teddy imagines her in order to reassure herself, to confirm to her that there are really shady things going on. To prevent himself from returning to the harsh reality in which he killed his wife, who herself killed her children.
Then, I would like to talk about the dream he had at a time, where he talks to his wife and tells her that he does not want to wake up, this in the middle of the ashes that fall everywhere on the ground... This scene is sublime, notably thanks to the music, On The Nature Of Daylight. During the first viewing, we don't understand why water flows on Teddy's hands, then we don't understand where the blood that flows from his wife's belly that was supposed to have died in a fire comes from. We just think that since it's a dream, it's not necessarily coherent. Here again, he takes its meaning since Ted unconsciously remembers the circumstances of his wife's death. The water which flows from his hands is the water of the lake, from which he takes out his drowned children, while the blood comes from the shot which he administered to him.
Then, another very interesting element in this film: the fact that Teddy Daniels is particularly looking for Andrew Laeddis in the hospital, while he is Andrew Laeddis. It's really great because we realize that unconsciously (still), he is searching for himself, that he is looking for his own identity in the hospital, without realizing it.
Finally, I'd like to talk a little bit about the end of the film. Psychiatrist Sheenan asks Andrew a question and calls him Ted to make sure he is well healed. But Andrew doesn't react, he starts again his delirium and talks to his partner Chuck. The end can be interpreted in two different ways because of Ted's phrase: Is it better to live as a monster or die as a good man?. This sentence leaves me personally puzzled. Does that mean Teddy's pretending to relapse? Thus, he knows full well that he will be lobotomized and will be able to definitively escape his dark past? But the sentence doesn't fit so much into the context, since even if he is lobotomized in this way, that's not why he will die as a good man... Second version: one can simply think that he is really relapsing and that this experience represents a total failure for psychoanalysis. I don't have a clear view, even though I understand that the book is leaning towards the second solution.
This is what makes this film with the final twist more than extraordinary, because it involves many questions.
i didnt understand it the first time i watched it, but like you said the second time around its definitely looked at at a different perspective. just like "the sixth sense" would love to read your review about that.
enjoy watching thier performances in each and every scene is OK to me while put the puzzle and develop story in my head. But, to understanding the whole picture and grasp true meaning behind all of it, I don't know. Do I have to keep my mind sane or projected from insanity pov.