Shutter Island

It's difficult to describe Shutter Island's story without giving too much away, and the less one knows about it before watching the better. The movie begins with Teddy, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and his sidekick Chuck meeting for the first time on a boat en route to the eponymous island some time in the 1950s. They're U.S. marshals, a fact which every review I've read states as though everyone knows what that means. Even after watching Shutter Island, I wasn't entirely clear, so I looked it up. They carry out enforcement on behalf of the courts, apparently, although that doesn't make it much clearer. Anyway, these marshals are visiting the island to investigate the disappearance on one of its inhabitants, a woman who drowned her children and has thus been locked up in the island's asylum, which houses dangerous criminals with refractory mental illness. The woman appears to have evaporated through the walls, as the psychiatrist (and head of the asylum) played by Ben Kingsley puts it. Teddy and Chuck soon find themselves trapped on the island as a wild storm develops, their investigation frustrated at every turn by the island's reticent inhabitants. They uncover inconsistent morsels of information, and it's clear that something strange is happening. The truth, it transpires, is not what Teddy was expecting...

The spooky noir setting and various vivid Lynchian dream/hallucinatory sequences, along with solid acting and faultless direction by Scorcese, add up to a superb-looking and feeling film. But Shutter Island is much more than the sum of its superficial parts. It has an exciting and engaging story, but the really thrilling aspect is its exploration of profound themes -  madness, violence, guilt, grief, reality, memory - which comes to a head in a three or four stunning dialogue-driven sequences between Teddy and various other characters. For Teddy is investigating what it means to be human as much as he's investigating the disappearance of the madwoman - and what he finds is fascinating.

Shutter Island is the best film I've seen this year, and certainly the only one I'd be tempted to go and see a second time. I think it's been underrated by many reviewers, and I don't quite understand why. I thought it was a masterpiece.