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Read and Discuss with A Team about things you didn't notice when you watched the movie.

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Read and Discuss with A Team about things you didn't notice when you watched the movie.

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A thick blanket of fog covers the first frames of Shutter Island, an easy metaphor for the case US Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) thinks he's investigating: shrouded in secrecy, and impossible to see his way through. By the end, that fog will have cleared, and the truth will have descended on him with a terrible, shattering clarity. The film will be recontextualised, from thriller to tragedy. And a single line of dialogue - a flash of a question that wounds Teddy in the moment - will endure, haunting audiences 15 years after its release.

Like the 2003 Dennis Lehane novel it's based on, Martin Scorsese's propulsive adaptation is also set in 1954. Rachel Solando, one of the patients at Ashecliffe - a psychiatric institution for the criminally insane - is reported to have broken out of a locked room and seemingly vanished off the eponymous island. Teddy and his new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) arrive and begin making inquiries, but find that the doctors are uncooperative, access to one ward has been strictly cut off, and the patients appear to be hiding something. Over the film, Teddy becomes increasingly paranoid that the institution is a front for a more sinister experimental facility, while also struggling with hallucinations of his late wife, Dolores (Michelle Williams), and disquieting memories of his role in the liberation of Dachau. It's gradually revealed that his interest in the case is also personal - he believes that Andrew Laeddis, the man he suspects of having murdered Dolores, is on the island.

Shutter Island's big twist, one that makes it all the more rewarding on subsequent rewatches, is that Teddy is Andrew Laeddis. He hasn't just arrived at the island, but been a patient there for the past two years. He murdered Dolores, after she killed their three children in a fit of manic depression. Unable to cope with the reality of having failed his family, he recasts himself as the savior figure in his fantasy, now deep into his delusion of being Teddy. The missing person's case is actually an elaborate role-playing exercise, crafted by his doctors and aimed at getting through to him. "Chuck" is his primary physician, Dr. Sheehan, who accepted the role to stay close to Andrew and keep him safe. If the game doesn't help him regain lucidity, they'll have no choice but to lobotomize him. His propensity for violence makes him too much of a risk otherwise.

The twist casts old suspicions in a new light - "Teddy" intuits that all of the patients have been coached to say they've never seen Laeddis and they have, but only because he needed to arrive at the revelation of who this man is himself. And he does by the end, displaying a crushing awareness of his true identity and accepting culpability.

In the very next scene, however, he relapses into his "Teddy" persona, indicating to Dr. Sheehan that he's plotting an escape. Andrew's breakthrough was short-lived. Delusion has taken hold of him once more. A lobotomy is imminent. It's a somber ending, but the film's final-line twist is even more of a gut punch. "Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?" asks Andrew, getting up and walking willingly towards the orderlies approaching him, even as Dr. Sheehan bolts upright too. Realization strikes him at the same time as it does the audience - this is no longer a mentally ill man scheduled for a lobotomy, but a sane one actively choosing the procedure so he can repress his guilt and grief. He's no longer "Teddy," needing to be reminded he's Andrew, but Andrew, pretending to be Teddy so he can forget.

Teddy confronts a ghost.

Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock

Throughout the movie, Andrew has questioned what's real and what's not, what information he can take at face value and who he can trust. Throughout, the one thing he's remained convinced of is his own sanity, the steadfast belief that anyone trying to persuade him otherwise was a liar. Now, faced with all his moral failings, it's he who turns to a lie. His elaborate illusion was a temporary reprieve from the pain. Now he seeks a more permanent solution.

Over the movie, several patients tell "Teddy" that they'd rather be confined here than ever leave; they're too afraid of what the real world must be like now, too wracked by doubt about their capacity to deal with it. Andrew too retreats into the safety of his fictional world, too broken to break out of it. "Sanity's not a choice," a psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley) tells "Teddy" at one point. "You can't just choose to get over it." But a choice dangles in front of Andrew, and he grasps at it.

"I think he has a momentary flash," said Lehane in an interview, putting to rest the various interpretations of the film's ending. "It's just one moment of sanity mixed in the midst of all the other delusions." A brief moment is all it takes. Andrew, plagued by repeated visions of fire, finally takes a match to his past, erasing his old self, and giving the film an abiding afterlife in the process.

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15 Years Ago, Martin Scorsese's Most Underrated Thriller Delivered A Shocking Twist That Still Holds Up

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Even 15 years after its release, 'Shutter Island's ending continues to haunt.

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What do you think happened at the end of the movie, do you think he went back to reality or back into his fantasy? Was anything that happened at the end anything you expected?

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Read this article about some quotes from the movie and tell me about either a quote from the article or another that you've found interesting and why.

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Read this article about some quotes from the movie and tell me about either a quote from the article or another that you've found interesting and why.

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After viewing Martin Scorseses much underrated Shutter Island for a second time I have decided to analyze both the stories twisty plot and its deep themes. If you have not seen Shutter Island and…

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Did you know the major plot twist in one of Leonardo DiCaprio's most famous movies is hinted at through one tiny prop?

Starring DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, and Michelle Williams, Shutter Island is one of Martin Scorsese's highest-grossing films of all time.

The 2010 film follows the story of U.S. Marshal Edward 'Teddy' Daniels (DiCaprio) as he travels to a hospital which houses the criminally insane. After arriving on the island alongside his partner Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) the pair set about investigating the disappearance.

However, things soon take a pretty unexpected turn. Watch the trailer below if you're unfamiliar with the film:

From the get-go it's pretty obvious that all is not as it seems with Teddy, who is frequently plagued by flashbacks throughout the film before a mind-bending final twist is revealed.

In honour of DiCaprio's 50th birthday today (11 November), we're revisiting the clever way in which the actor was able to hint at Teddy's fate throughout the film. Spoiler warnings ahead.

What happens at the end of Shutter Island?

Towards the end of the film we learn that 'U.S. Marshal Edward Daniels' doesn't actually exist, with Teddy ultimately being revealed to be a patient named Andrew Laeddis.

Andrew has been incarcerated at the institution for killing his wife after she drowns their children. Meanwhile his work partner 'Chuck Aule' is actually revealed to be Andrew's psychiatrist Dr Lester Sheehan.

The 'missing patient' narrative was also something Teddy came up with to help him deal with the trauma. The staff decide to go along with it to see if it will help him accept reality, but it doesn't work and he's given a lobotomy instead.

Pretty chilling, right?
Anything look suspicious here? (Paramount Pictures)
How did Leonardo DiCaprio hint at Teddy's fate throughout the film?

A video uploaded by movie fan @imeugeneclark explains that a prop used in the film reveals that Teddy was a patient all along.

"Did you know that in Shutter Island a small detail reveals Teddy's true identity early on?" they explain.

"Of course, a big plot twist of the movie is finding out that Teddy Daniels isn't in fact a US Marshal but actually Andrew Laeddis, a patient at the mental sanatorium he is investigating.

"This twist is actually given away as every time that Teddy goes to smoke a cigarette, someone else lights it for him.

"This is because patients on Shutter Island are not permitted to carry lighters around with them."

This wasn't the only clue eagle-eyed viewers noticed either, with one person pointing out that Teddy's formal clothes are too big for him, while a third added the reason Teddy's 'partner' struggles to take off his holster before entering the facility is because he isn't used to it.

Clever, huh?
Featured Image Credit: Emma McIntyre/WireImage/Paramount Pictures

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Leonardo DiCaprio used a prop in one of his movies to give the huge plot twist away to viewers

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Have you ever noticed this minor prop in Leonardo DiCaprio's Shutter Island - which gives away a major plot twist?

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Tell me about the biggest plot twist in the movie for you.

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Tell me what you thought about the movie. Did you like it? Did you dislike it? Maybe you liked one aspect but not another. Go into detail.