Shutter Island – should you read a novel or watch a movie first?

Recently a friend of mine asked me what to do first - read a book by Dennis Lehane or watch the movie by Martin Scorsese with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role? Since I know both, I could honesty advise him.

I answered - read the novel and then watch the movie. Why? First of all, because you won't be limited in any way. You will be able to create in your own imagination everything what Lehane portrayed in his writing. Otherwise the film will eclipse the novel, because it's simply great, with superb creations of actors Leonardo DiCaprio (as Teddy Daniels), Mark Ruffalo (as Chuck Aule) and Ben Kingsley (as Dr. Cawley).

Of course, adaptation is not 100% perfect. But if anyone of you watched the movie first, don't be discouraged. You won't be surprised by unexpected changes in plot, but you will certainly appreciate the language, scenes which are missing in the film, and generally - the climate of the novel.

In my opinion this is one of those movies and books to remember and reminisce for many years. Definitely you will give thought about the story and ending.

If someone doesn't know anything about Shutter Island, I publish some brief information below:

Shutter Island is a novel by Dennis Lehane, published in April 2003. A film adaptation was released in February 2010. Laeta Kalogridis wrote a screenplay of the movie and it was directed by Martin Scorsese, who in my opinion is one of the best directors alive today.

Description from Amazon.com: "The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new ­partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance. As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades—with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems".

In a nutshell – it's a great novel and a good psychological thriller :).