re: the ending of Shutter Island - discussion (SPOILERS)

the 67th patient note didnt give it away for me...for me it was when the doctor said that rachel solandro's husband died in WW2 and then they started showing flashbacks of leo in WW2..that made it pretty obvious that he was the husband

although my initial guess was that his wife had gone crazy because he was away in the war for so long and that drove her to kill her kids...but i was wrong

also, i had no idea his partner was the doctor, but i probably should have guessed after he had trouble with his gun in the beginning and how the lady asked him for water and wrote RUN when he wasnt there

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Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) said, "why all wet baby?" in a creepy kind of homo way when Teddy busts into the top of the lighthouse. What was up with that?

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In the flashback at the end, Andrew opened the sliding door leading out to the backyard, and saw his wife swinging on the wooden bench by the lake. As she got up from her seat and approached him, he muttered, "Why are you all wet, baby?"

Cawley knew Andrew's story well, and was most likely just having some fun as he was about to yet again embark on a mission to convince Andrew who he really was.

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So is it clear that Leo killed his 3 kids and his wife? Or did his wife kill the kids and Leo kill her like in the flashback?

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The flashback's portrayal was accurate. His wife killed their 3 kids, and he subsequently killed his wife.

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the 67th patient note didnt give it away for me...for me it was when the doctor said that rachel solandro's husband died in WW2 and then they started showing flashbacks of leo in WW2..that made it pretty obvious that he was the husband

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if there was any doubt, it was erased when he interviewed "rachel" and she flipped out calling him her husband

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when he was beating the patient up. Somebody called him "Teddy".

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He was only known as Teddy during that point.

Previews pretty much gave the movie away. The line "Who is patient number 67?" in the preview made the movie very predictable.

But, I will say it was still enjoyable and well done.

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I would love to hear from someone who has a fresh memory of the novel and can tell us if it is definitive if he was pretending to not be cured at the end to avoid going back to the real world and if they gave him the labotomy at the end.

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Having read the novel a few years back, it's not fresh on my mind but when you're reading the book, it definitely gives you much more time to process what's going on with the story. For some reason, whether I read it or not, I was under the impression that "Andrew/Teddy" had acted out the sequence of events more than once while on the island. That's how the Dr. was able to predict the outcome of his actions. The "role play intervention" during the last "2 days" was performed as an experiment and means of enabling him through introspection/self-analysis/experience to reach a breakthrough and resolve his inner conflicts regarding his perceptions of reality. This didn't necessarily mean that the hospital was not using neuroleptic/psychotropic pharmacological methods as well, which in 1954 was in its infancy as a means of Tx. In light of this, from what I remember, it leaves open the door of possibility that his psychosis may have had something additional to do with the experimental medications similar to chlorpramozine being used, having a wide array of extrapyramidal effects. The doctors were definitely walking the line of being innovative/ingenious as well as being completely insane with a sense of emotional detachment that perhaps masqueraded at times as empathy for the patients. It can be interpreted either way in regard to whether he was pretending to be cured. Personally, I think he was quite insane as a result of his war/civilian traumas in combination with having an acute awareness that something was augmenting and enhancing the psychosis aside from his experiences prior to coming to the island. This movie was well made and can have a myriad of interpretations, not unlike being inside a persons completely psychotic mind and trying to make definitive, logical sense.

They were ALL bat-shite crazy! Yet the doctors as well as "Andrew/Teddy" and anyone else in this world has a paradigm with which they define insanity. Perceptions are relative at some point within our psyche. Was Teddy crazy to kill his wife or the guards? People have to decide for themselves. To me, it is. But the situations are crazy and I might too perhaps react in similar manner under similar stressors.

As "sane" people, we are always trying to make sense in this world, where things don't make sense. People perform many actions via emotion. Teddy/Andrew did. Was he crazy? Just as many of the patients conveyed in the movie, "this world's crazy". Does that make them crazy that they can rationally determine some crazy actions and act out of emotion in a "crazy" manner in others? We're all human and there infinite angles to view insanity. People have different coping mechanisms.

Let's put it this way:
Teddy/Andrew did not fit societal norms by a long shot. He wasn't coping very well, whatever the cause. Neither did the doctors for that matter.

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2. Did Leo escape from the prison prior to the beginning of the movie? Because I got the impression that he escaped and then they made up the Rachel-gone-missing story to bring him back to the prison since he thought he was a detective and then that's how they got him back on the island. Why else would they have been on the boat? Or again, was this all in his head?

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He starts out sick on a boat. Translation: He is already starting withdrawal. Apparently, the fantasy starts with him arriving on the island on a ferry. So I guess they assumed if they put him on the ferry and headed toward the docks he would slip fully into his fantasy from the beginning. I have a feeling that this, combined with his withdrawal setting in, was why he was freaking out and sick in the first scene on the boat.

to answer those confused, he was faking being sick at the end. he wanted the lobotomy.

now as far as questions, there were some unanswered:
1) everyone fits into his delusion except the doctor in the cave. who is she? why was her character never revealed in the ward?

2) what was the fire story? did they ever explain what the deal with the "burned down apartment complex" was? was that the story andrew came up with to cope?