Shutter Island is a 2010 American psychological thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese.

The
film is based on Dennis Lehane's 2003 novel of the same name. Production started in March
2008. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, who is investigating a
psychiatric facility located on the island named in the title. The film grossed over $128 million in
its initial domestic theater release.[2]

Shutter Island was originally stated to be released on October 2, 2009, but Paramount Pictures
pushed the release date to February 19, 2010.[3]

n 1954, U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his newly assigned
partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), go to the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on
Shutter Island located in Boston Harbor. They are investigating the disappearance of Rachel
Solando, a patient who apparently vanished from a locked room. Dr. John Cawley (Ben
Kingsley), the head psychiatrist, explains that Rachel was institutionalized after drowning her
three children.

During the search for Rachel, Teddy sees a lighthouse but is told it has already been searched.
He asks to see the hospital personnel files; Cawley refuses, but allows the Marshals to question
the staff. They are frustrated to learn that Rachel's psychiatrist, Dr. Sheehan, left on vacation
after her disappearance. That night, Teddy has a strange dream in which he sees his wife Dolores
Chanal (Michelle Williams), who was killed in a fire two years earlier. She tells Teddy that
Rachel is still on the island, as is Andrew Laeddis, the arsonist responsible for her own death.

In the morning, they interview patients from Rachel's group therapy sessions, one of whom
distracts Chuck and warns Teddy to run. Later, Teddy reveals to Chuck his ulterior motive for
taking the investigation. Andrew Laeddis was sent to Ashecliffe for his crime and then
disappeared, motivating Teddy to investigate the institution. He met a former patient, George
Noyce, who claimed that Ashecliffe experimented on patients. Teddy is determined to bring the
institution down.

Cawley informs Teddy that Rachel has been found and presents her to him. The delusional
Rachel (Emily Mortimer) mistakes Teddy for her husband who died in World War II, and then
becomes very agitated. Later, Teddy develops increasingly severe migraine headaches
accompanied by hypersensitivity to light. In his sleep he has more strange dreams, followed by
waking hallucinations—many of which are related to World War II and the Dachau
concentration camp, which he helped to liberate. He is now determined to search for Laeddis in
Ward C, which houses the most dangerous patients. There he finds Noyce (Jackie Earle Haley)
who is afraid of being taken to the lighthouse, where lobotomies are performed, and tells Teddy
that the entire investigation is a game constructed for him.

Teddy rejoins Chuck and they head to the cliffs surrounding the island, intending to reach the
lighthouse. Eventually, Chuck suggests that continuing is too dangerous and Teddy goes to the
lighthouse alone. He is unable to reach it, and when he returns, Chuck has disappeared. Looking
for him at the foot of the cliff, Teddy finds a woman hiding in a cave who confirms his
suspicions by revealing that she is the real Rachel Solando (Patricia Clarkson). She says that she
was a psychiatrist at Ashecliffe until she found out about the experiments. She was forcibly
committed to ensure her silence. She explains that the hospital is using psychotropic medication
in an attempt to develop mind control techniques and create "sleeper agent" spies. She says that
Teddy has been similarly drugged since he arrived on the island.

Teddy returns to Ashecliffe, where Dr. Cawley tells him that he came to the island without a
partner – nobody seems to know Chuck. Teddy eventually makes it to the lighthouse but finds
nothing unusual on his way up the stairs, contrary to what he expected. At the top of the
lighthouse, he finds Dr. Cawley who reveals that Teddy is not Edward Daniels, but ex-Marshal
Andrew Laeddis. Cawley says that he has been a patient at Ashecliffe for two years since he
murdered his manic depressive wife in a fit of rage after discovering she had drowned their
children. Cawley explains that Rachel Solando never existed, neither as patient nor psychiatrist.
"Chuck" then arrives and reveals himself as Dr. Sheehan, Andrew's psychiatrist; the woman who
was presented as Solando the patient turns out to be a nurse. Sheehan and Cawley state that
Andrew lived the fantasy of still being an active U.S. Marshal, searching for Andrew Laeddis as
a means to disassociate himself from what he had done. They show him that the names "Edward
Daniels" and "Rachel Solando" are anagrams of "Andrew Laeddis" and "Dolores Chanal",
respectively.

Cawley explains that Andrew has gone through repeated cycles of realizing the truth, only to
regress into his fantasy again, during which he has injured multiple orderlies and patients,
leading the administrative board to demand a lobotomy as a permanent solution to his problem.
Sheehan and Cawley explain that they decided to try an experimental therapy, in which they
created the role play of "Rachel's" disappearance based on Andrew's fantasy. They say they
hoped that by failing to uncover his mind-control conspiracy, Andrew would see reality and
return to it permanently. Andrew initially protests violently, even attempting to shoot Cawley
and Sheehan before realizing his gun is fake. Finally, he appears to accept their explanations,
blaming himself for ignoring Dolores' mental illness until she killed their children. Experiencing
yet another migraine, which causes a flashback of the traumatic event of his wife's and children's
deaths, Andrew faints.

The next morning, Andrew once again calls Sheehan "Chuck" and mentions exposing the
Island's doings to the outside world. Sheehan silently signals to Cawley, and orderlies approach
to take Andrew for the lobotomy. Andrew asks Sheehan whether it would be worse to "live as a
monster, or die as a good man". He then walks away calmly with the orderlies.