The first series adaptation of a Sebastian Fitzek novel has been running on Amazon Prime * for a few days. The thriller was released in 2006 The therapy, which is one of the author’s early successes. In the six-part series, a father loses his daughter in a doctor’s waiting room. What really happened? The rest of the plot becomes a disturbing journey into the psyche of the renowned therapist Viktor Larenz.
The setting, story elements and various twists are strongly reminiscent of a real suspense masterpiece: Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese, which you can rent on Amazon *. Does the comparison seem strange to you? In this article we show the striking parallels between the Amazon series and the Scorsese thriller – and one huge difference.
Stream on Amazon: This is the better therapy alternative
The spoiler-free comparison between The Therapy and Shutter Island: In the mystery thriller, Leonardo DiCaprio plays US Marshal Teddy Daniels. Daniels is sent to an island with his colleague Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo). The island houses a psychiatric hospital. A patient escaped, but no one knows how. Or where.
As in Therapy, nothing is as it seems in Shutter Island. A crime thriller turns into a psychological thriller. The audience is deliberately misled for a long time, and only gradually does the plot reveal its secrets – until a twist changes the entire film. Both stories also focus on a rough island: in the Martin Scorsese thriller, the eponymous Shutter Island off the coast of Massachusetts and in The Therapy, the fictional Parkum in the North Sea. Both thrillers begin their stories with the crossing to the respective wasteland.
The comparison between The Therapy and Shutter Island with spoilers: The most important parallels only emerge in the second half of The Therapy or Shutter Island:
Both characters are “treated” by psychiatrists – the twists arise from the respective therapeutic breakthroughs.
Shutter Island ends much darker than The Therapy
The twists: The therapy reveals in its finale that Viktor Larenz poisoned his daughter Josy (Helena Zengel) for years because he suffers from Munchausen syndrome. In a reveal scene, we learn that Larenz almost drowned his daughter and left her to die. He couldn’t live with this act.
In the end, in Shutter Island, it turns out that Teddy’s wife killed their children. Teddy didn’t want to believe that his wife was mentally ill. He does not recognize the reality of this tragedy. Instead, he built an alternative reality for himself.
The end: In The Therapy, the main character is “cured” at the end – Larenz lives with his guilt and reconciles with his daughter. Shutter Island ends on a much darker note: Teddy suffers a relapse, unable to accept his traumatic reality.
You can stream all episodes of The Therapy on Amazon. You can rent Shutter Island on Amazon.
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