• Home
• About

Shutter Island

This movie had all the elements of a good story, yet I was not pulled in to it.

Objective/Stakes

Here’s why it is so important to hook a viewer early on. (Obviously, the following is in the context of what we know early on.) Leonardo Dicaprio and his partner came to the island to investigate a missing prisoner/patient. So? What are the stakes? It was clear the woman could not have made it off the island, thus no stakes of a dangerous fellon harming innocent people on the mainland. It was clear that she could not do much damage on the island because of all the guards, thus no stakes there. And why would I have cared even if she had killed someone on the island, especially a fellow prisoner? Finally, the story presented no stakes for Leo’s character had he failed in his investigation. Win or lose, everything would have been the same for him.

With stakes from the get-go, I might have been hooked enough to be swallowed by the rest of the story as it unfolded. As it was, I felt detached and uncaring till the end.

Ending

I saw it coming a mile away. I think I was convinced when Leo and his partner were given patient outfits after their suits got wet.

Little thing

By the end, I thought it was beyond implausible that Leo’s character was in that kind of facility just for murdering his wife under such circumstances.

Subscribe to the RSS feed and follow the conversation.