Warning: Major spoilers (imma spoil everything)
Warning: I'll talk as if you just watched the movie too bc it's late and I don't wanna spend too much time summarising the movie. If you want a refresher, look here for Screen Rant's review, or Wiki.
So this is really well done psychological thriller that's really intense, filled with little details that allude to the truth, and lots of jarring imagery that all come together in one big, messed-up semi-ambiguous conclusion.
By the time Chuck (aka Dr. Sheehan) gave and lit the second cigarette for Teddy (aka Andrew Laeddis) with eerily familiar movements, I had two major theories about the movie:
1. The institution is indeed experimenting on Teddy, and
2. Teddy was a patient.
I really loved the little details of the movie, like how all the guards were tense around Teddy, or that Chuck only gave ambiguous answers, or the condescending behaviour of the staff towards Teddy, or that Teddy only touched fire (or matches, works both ways) the moment the truth starts being revealed and so on. The little bandage on Teddy's forehead throughout the movie made me certain very early on that Teddy was indeed Laeddis, because Teddy clearly described Laeddis as having a big scar on his face. The bandage mysteriously disappeared when Teddy started confronting being Laeddis, however, which was a bit disappointing. I was expecting the bandage to play a bigger role for some reason, such as being a physical proof of Teddy's delusions.
What I interpreted from the ending of the movie is that Andrew is fully aware of his delusions, and chose lobotomy in order to "die as a good man" and not "live as a monster". This could be from two possible theories behind the plot:
(1) Andrew truly was a patient
(2) Teddy, the Marshal, was psychologically manipulated into lobotomy.
Which, both to me is really WTF? If Teddy/Andrew wanted to die, there are much easier ways aside from lobotomy, like jumping of the cliff into jagged rocks, instead of being a living zombie with debatable consciousness. I would have settled happily with theory (1), of Andrew being a patient (which is the one the movie directs us to), except one tiny plot hole that really frustrates me.
When the Marshal Teddy was interrogating a female patient at the beginning of the movie, she wrote "RUN" on Teddy's notebook when Chuck turned away. This makes zero sense to me. In the case of (1), that patient would have been an actress pretending to be a patient as a part of the role-play. If so, why would she tell Teddy to run? Unless, of course, she's really a patient and is warning the patient Andrew to run. But, why would anyone run experiments with unstable variables. She could have just as easily relapsed into an episode as she is to follow her script.
In (2), the "RUN" would make more sense, except that I feel that (1) ties all the variable up much nicer than (2) does, especially regarding Teddy's PTSD and his wife. I imagine that in (2), Teddy truly does have PTSD and a wife killed by fire, which is what the institution used to manipulate Teddy.
The female patient really does frustrate me.
All in all, I would say that I did enjoy the movie, but I was also very frustrated by it, because of its unbearably slow pace and a plot that is f-ed up. I like happy endings and well-done sad endings, but this plot really only made me go "WTF?" instead of feeling sad for Andrew/Teddy. Not a movie I would want to watch again, like with k-drama Signal. Once is just the right amount for me.
I must say though, I thoroughly enjoyed the cinematography and super intense suspense. I really recommend anyone with 2-odd hours to spare to watch this movie very, very closely.
