jfshade wrote:JackRiddler wrote:A second viewing makes the straight reading of the movie seem the more supportable, but it's also obvious that the film intentionally facilitates either reading.
I think most people would choose Door #1 ("Andrew is Shutter Island inmate #67.") But both readings break down fatally for me. The straight reading fails, among other reasons, because it suggests that the staff - not to mention a bunch of criminally insane inmates - choreographed the charade that perfectly, and that the good doctors managed to script in a hurricane - arriving at the proper time and inflicting just the right amount of damage.
As for the alt reading, consider this bit of dialog when Teddy bursts in on Dr. Cawley in the lighthouse (paraphrased):
Dr. Cawley: "Why are you all wet, baby?"
Teddy: "What did you say?"
D.C.: "You heard what I said."
Teddy asked Dolores the exact same question when he got home and found her soaking wet, after she drowned the children. How would Dr. Cawley have known about that unless Andrew had told him?
Our protagonist can neither be Teddy nor Andrew; I rather like it that way. And I agree wholeheartedly with the comments about the cinematography and Robbie Robertson's brilliant soundtrack, which is worth getting to hear the full pieces, not just the snippets used in the film.
After a second viewing, here is what I think: Teddy's wife and one child, the girl, were killed in a fire just as Teddy believed. Teddy's memories seemed to focus only on the girl while in his 'memory' of the drowning the two little boys were almost an afterthought. I think Andrew was a real inmate on the island, who was probably also a federal Marshal, who had murdered his wife after she drowned their three children. Andrew was somehow disposed of and Teddy was given his identity and implanted with his memories. I think Teddy was aware something like this had happened--what was it he said to Chuck at the end? "is it better to live like a monster or die a good man?" after which Chuck calls him Teddy.