I think you are spot on the money. If the ‘big twist’ was really mind-blowing, then I’d guess that you were probably half asleep for most of the film.

@ Jorge
I don’t think Leo’s acting was fake as such, more so very deliberate and heavily naive. I thought he did a good job.

Dave @ filmstank

So everyone picked up on the ending? I’m not sure as I’m reading all the comments here, but I think that he acted insane at the end after having regressed into a ‘normal’ person. Why, because obviously he did not want to live the rest of his life knowing what had happened and what he had done, ‘a monster’ he refers to himself as, who I think would rather die or live as Teddy.

Ah Thomas I almost forgot; did you ever get the feeling that Ben Kingsley looked at times like he was not really up to speed with the contextual meaning and sequence of his lines as Scorsese laid out. He acutally looked like at times like he was faking it, because he really was not sure that he and the director were of the same understanding of the message he was asked to deliver to the audience. I was dissapointed with his lack of believability , however I may have been the one not up to speed.

Alex, I thought that until the very end, where his “partner” asks him how he is feeling, when Leo shows that he has regressed back into his delusion his partner looks toward Ben Kingsly and give’s the..”no” head nod. Had it been a set up, that scene would have never took place.

Alex – I think your suggestion is a possibility that the film raises and taunts us with but I ultimately feel that the film does conclude firmly asserting the generally accepted scenario.

I came out of the movie thinking De caprio was never actually insane, but instead their whole experiment was to make himself think he was insane. Any thoughts on that?

Oh, and I do agree that Shutter Island is not so much about the twist as it is about the journey and the questions raised by the revelation itself. This is helped immensely by the little details from the production design, the performances, etc…

I do appreciate Luke’s point about a possible earlier revelation, although that would’ve change the dynamic of the film to a large degree and that is something that is far more forgivable on the page then on the screen – and I wonder if that same audience would’ve found an extended post-twist narrative equally unsatisfying on many levels.

[I know neither of you have suggested it but I am frustrated by comments made by Paatsch and co. who suggest those who have praised Shutter Island only do so because it's a 'Scorsese' film - being a 'Scorsese film' certainly didn't help the critical response to Gangs of NY and I'll be the first to admit the flaws with most of his work over the past decade but I think this is a step up.]

Either way, I’ll be interested to see what I think after a re-watch which I hope to do soon.

I actually had severe reservations at key points during Shutter Island where I furiously scribbled notes questioning key aspects of the film but afterwards it all fell into place and realised that Scorsese’s trick was to make me think that I was smarter than his film when in the end I really wasn’t.

The more I think about Shutter Island the more I really think it’s Scorsese’s most enigmatic work in years – and transcends the fairly generic setting of the asylum and the way that’s been used before in various other ‘paranoid’ narratives.

To say the film’s merits rests with its dénouement – as some other critics have done – and whether or not the audience anticipates it or not, I think is to entirely overlook the utterly fascinating and visually arresting ways in which Scorsese brings us to the ending.

And as you pointed out, the way he does leaves no doubt as to the veracity of his claims to cinematic mastery!