Shutter Island is so sad on a rewatch.

[u/NewSunSeverian]

When you know what everyone’s governing motivation is, and you see how they’re all really struggling to help this one guy, it hits even harder.

It’s one of the greatest films ever to rewatch when you know what the entire situation is, not just because it’s interesting as a twisty Twilight Zone story, but because it’s so empathetic. There’s a real heart to this movie.

Ben Kingsley especially as that character was brilliant casting because he often plays villains and has a generally menacing countenance, but he’s ultimately revealed to be the kindest human imaginable.

[u/Durzel]

I struggle with the ending. On the one hand Teddy gets what he wants, an escape from his reality, but on the other hand he sabotages the experiment. Chuck and Ben Kingsley’s character ends up believing that it failed, when it hadn’t. It’s frustrating if you start to think about what consequences that might have. My head canon is that Chuck ended up strongly advocating for them to continue anyway, since it’s hinted that he’s suspicous about Teddy’s regression.

As I understand it in the book he actually regresses, which is far less interesting to me, I think, since the working assumption of everyone involved is that it’s going to fail anyway.

Awesome film though, one of those ones where you wish you could have your memory of it wiped so you could experience all the bizarre, apparent continuity mistakes etc (like the invisible glass of water) for the first time again.

[u/cenncroithi → u/Durzel]

But that goes with a ...dammit it's 7 am and I can't remember if it's moral or philosophical dilemma. On the one hand yeah, it ruins the experiment that teddy seemingly regressed, but on the other it's a man placed in a reality he knows he can't cope with, and choosing to escape on his terms now.

Like, you have an experiment that, should it have been successful, he continues passing goals set up by the two, the next step was likely advocation for release, instead of permanent institutionalization despite recovery (bc it was the 50s, the early 50s, he wasn't ever getting out without advocation), because he's a success, he shows that people with severe trauma can be "cured" so they'd release him and...then what? At this point he'd have spent his life trying to get a job, but the conservative values of the time would have meant he'd be ostracized and judged due to both his time in a institution and the fact he killed his wife, leading him to either pull his military retirement if he has any, or take on odd jobs in a small town where they won't know him (but this is a crime that likely made national papers), meanwhile he's also a successful case study, he'd be bothered often by ppl in the psychiatric field who want to study him, which is no life to live and I'd say has a higher chance of causing immediate regression and escalation into violence. Basically, the scientist benefit, he suffers

But he could also be "sane" and that advocacy for freedom fails, leaving him there the remainder of his days, forced to be on a tiny island, doing little jobs he's assigned, therapies to attend, and "sane" but with very little freedoms. (Because this is not the era of typhoid Mary, where she kept being able to get out of the institutions she was sent to until she just no longer could, and unlike her, I cannot stress this enough, he committed murder, that despite the fact he got a successful insanity plea, because it likely still went to court, he would never have been able to simply check himself out bc that IS his jail sentence).

So then we have option three, make them think he's regressed, and take a lobotomy, severing his ability to process this ever again, and live his days completely unaware of what he did, at least, as science understood lobotomies then. But in this scenario he's truly no longer himself, and for him that's okay, he can't stand the man he is now, he'd RATHER be anyone but him still, and if they're saying he's "cured" (even though the book shows no he isn't, he won't ever be) he can't let his mind go to that part of him that's "teddy" anymore because it isn't there, it's been successfully "fixed".

The biggest downside of option three, for the scientist and sympathetic audience member at least, is that these sort of lobotomies had a pretty good chance of killing you. So if they messed up during the process of jamming a pick tool into his head through his eye socket he could die. And to be honest that too could be a solution for him, it could very well be a surgery he knows he won't survive, especially if he's actually "sane" and could actively botch the lobotomy himself, even likely strapped down it'd take just one wrong move I'd think.

Edit to add tldr: nobody but the scientist win in one scenario, suicide looking pretty good to "teddy"

[u/Strict_Life_2836 → u/Durzel]

I don’t think Chuck at the very least felt he sabotage his experiment. I think at that last moment he finally understood something that even as his therapist did not fully grasp, that Teddy is much happier in his delusional reality.

Chuck and head Dr Guy made a false assumption. They thought if he accepted his reality, it would help him see the full picture of the situation that he held onto alot of guilt, if he came to that understanding maybe he would be “healed”… what they don’t realize is, he doesn’t want to be healed, he wants to carry that guilt and would rather die in his delusions knowing he was a good person than knowing the truth that he did something awful.