So I've watched Shutter Island twice now and it's quickly become one of my favorite movies. A masterpiece, and a truly stunning and mind-warping experience.
I pretty much understand everything now. But one thing that's still a little strange to me is the ending. I've read in articles and stuff that the movie shows that the entire role-play treatment worked on Andrew. Worked as in, it did drive him to the end of realizing and fully admitting that his fantasies are all made up and to accept the truth that he killed his wife because she killed their kids...more so, he failed because he knew she was mentally troubled for a long time but didn't do anything about it.
He can't live with that guilt...it's too unbearable, so that final scene...he pretends to regress back into the "Teddy" character who pretends he's still a marshal, etc. Now, everything points to him pretending to regress so that he is lobotomized...he WANTS to be lobotomized so he doesn't have to feel the pain of his guilt anymore. But his doctor, sitting on the steps with him, hears him "regress" back into Teddy, and shakes his head at Dr. Cawley and the others, indicating that he's regressed again and will have be lobotomized.
So sure, the entire role-play treatment did work, but the way the movie ends, it would seem to suggest that the doctors and warden believe that since he has regressed again (or so they think), they think their entire treatment did NOT work. The only thing that undermines this is how Andrew gets up and walks calmly ahead, ready to be lobotomized, and the guards and doctors follow. What are they thinking in this moment? Aren't they wondering why Andrew WANTS to be lobotomized? And I find it hard to believe they would go ahead with the surgery if Andrew was practically asking for it...it would no longer be necessary if he wasn't violent.
Submitted December 06, 2018 at 11:40AM by bluejedi24 https://ift.tt/2BUa3Ru
