Something to watch tonight: Wednesday 6 August
Shutter Island (Scorsese, 2010)
Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), Shutter Island is one of the easiest recommendations I’ve ever made here.
I wrote about it back in March 2010 for the late, lamented, Capital Times:
There’s something very odd about the opening scenes in Shutter Island and it takes the entire film for you to put your finger on it. Shots don’t match between cuts, there’s a stilted quality to the dialogue (too much exposition for a Martin Scorsese movie) and the pacing is off. For a while I found myself wondering whether Marty had lost the immense influence of his great editor Thelma Schoonmaker, but there she is, still in the credits, as she has been for Scorsese since Raging Bull.
Several years ago, Scorsese played a practical joke on me (personally, it felt like at the time) when an entire reel of The Aviator was treated to look like faded 1930s Technicolor – I went to the Embassy counter to complain and felt very sheepish to be told by Oscar, the projectionist, that the director meant it that way. So, this time around I decided to trust the maestro and roll with the strangeness and was rewarded with one of the best (and cleverest) psychological thrillers in many a year.
Leonardo DiCaprio is a washed-up Federal Marshall, sent to the offshore Massachusetts booby hatch at Shutter Island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a woman patient. He is assigned a new partner (Mark Ruffalo) and, trapped there by a storm, they start to discover some terrible secrets about the facility and its creepy staff, led by Ben Kingsley and the always excellent value Max von Sydow.
Scorsese isn’t particularly interested in the supernatural and so doesn’t do traditional horror films. He is much more interested in what happens to human psychology under duress and, to that end, Shutter Island is as personal a work as he has produced since Bringing Out the Dead more than ten years ago.
Also reviewed in that excellent Capital Times column: Jane Campion’s wonderful Bright Star, a Hugh Grant low point, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, “little gem of a comedy” Masquerades from Algeria, the 3D remaster of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 and Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-wining performance in Crazy Heart.
Where to watch Shutter Island
Aotearoa: Streaming on Neon
Australia: Streaming on Stan
Canada: Streaming on Paramount+
Ireland & UK: Streaming on Prime Video
India: Streaming on Prime Video or HotStar
USA: Streaming on Paramount+ or Fubo