Shutter Island book vs. movie

Let it first be said that I am not one of those people who always hates it when books are made into movies. I actually love it as a compare and contrast exercise; sort of a mental mind game I like to play. If I find that I am really interested in seeing a movie that was adapted from a book, I will attempt to get my hands on the book first.

When it comes to Shutter Island, I had a very interesting experience. First of all, I had never even heard of the book when I started seeing trailers for the movie months ago. So I got the book on my Kindle in January and read it in a few days; hardly able to contain myself when I got to the plot twist ending. My husband was casting sideways glances at me as I was saying loudly to myself "No way....No f**king way!" as I finished the last few chapters. I couldn't wait for this movie to come out!

Let me now explain one of the big problems that people have when they read a book before seeing the movie version. When you read a book you form your own visuals for the characters, the settings, etc. Then when you see the movie you are always annoyed that the main character is too short for the role, or that they didn't decorate the house properly. What you see and what the director sees are always going to be different; and suspending your own version for theirs can be hard to do. When I read Shutter Island I had already seen the trailers for the movie so I was already using Scorsese's locations and putting DiCaprio into the lead role in my head. This creates a great balance for watching the movie. I am not distracted by the clashing visual representations, so I can concentrate on more important things like comparing and contrasting dialogue and plot line, and enjoying the mastery of the filming style and music. And on that note...

My general opinion of the movie is that it is a damn good movie and you should see it regardless of your book knowledge. Leonardo DiCaprio's acting is really fantastic. I admit that I have had a problem with him as an actor for some years and have given other reviewers a hard time for insisting that I have to love his acting ability. The more I watch him, the more I am coming to agree; he really is highly skilled. He is really great at adding subtle cues that when viewed without knowledge of the plot twist (which, of course, makes the whole movie and book entirely different experiences when you realize things are not what you think they are) seem to make sense, but take on new meaning when you understand what is really going on. I was also particularly struck by the music. This movie is in the film noir genere and the music really reflects the dark mood and high tension of many of the scenes. Obviously if you are in the mood to see a comedy I would chose something else, but if you want a good story with dark and sinister overtones, this is the way to go. I also, and I think this is probably obvious at this point, highly recommend reading the book. It isn't terribly long and is quite a page turner.

Since a book has a much longer time in which to spell out a story, it tends to flow better than the movie. Watching any movie after reading the book may leave you feeling as if you are riding on choppy seas instead of meandering slowly down a quiet river. Moving from one scene to another seems disjointed and artificial. Things are often explained to quickly, or even left out entirely in a movie. Shutter Island did feel a little rushed to me, however, all the elements that Scorsese chose to leave out were, in the end, parts of the book that seemed to be to drawn out and slow the progression of the story. Where it counted the most, he was excellent at pulling dialogue directly from the text. All in all the adaptation from book to movie was about as successful as such an undertaking can be.

Except...
The ending. (Spoiler alert) Dennis Lehane ends the book by letting us know that Andrew has regressed and is likely to receive the orbital lobotomy that we so hope that he will avoid when we learn of his true situation. Scorsese seems to feel that this semi-open ended finish is not dramatic enough for a movie so he takes it a step to far (in my opinion, anyway) by giving us a little hint that he may not have regressed after all when Andrew says "Do you think it is better to live as a monster, or die a happy man?" Is he going to the surgery clueless as to what is happening, or is he happy knowing that he will no longer have to think about and live with what he as done? Then we finish with a shot of the lighthouse, which, by the way, we have just had hammered into our heads is NOT a place where they perform such operations! Seriously mister director and/or screen writer! Did you really feel a need to put your own spin on such a fantastic novel by screwing up the ending? The original was fine with me.