Essentials: Donnie Darko

Year: 2001 (USA)
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Sci-Fi Drama
Directed: Richard Kelly
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daveigh Chase, Mary McDonnell, Homes Osborne, James Duval, Beth Grant, Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore, Seth Rogen
Production: Warner Bros.

Sometimes under the right circumstances a movie of high quality can be made by a director who may not otherwise know what they’re doing. These movies need the right conditions socially, the interest of the youth, and the right kind of financial support to be propped up and revered. Otherwise such a film would fall into obscurity and eventually get lost in the shuffle. Such movies include Napoleon Dynamite (2004), Empire Records (1995) and, of course Donnie Darko (2001).

Oh, the wisdom of youth

When Donnie Darko hit the theaters in early 2001 few people knew or cared much about it. The critical reviews were lukewarm at best and within a week or two, the movie was pulled from even select theaters. Then HBO happened. People; especially introverted and impressionable youth like myself started warming up to it. It balanced fate and freewill, faith and agnosticism, love and fear and discussed at length the idea of time travel. This was very appealing to a boy who was just introduced to the idea of parallel universes only a few short months ago.

Meanwhile in a parallel universe...

To me Donnie Darko is more of a nostalgia trip than a “great movie” (of course not saying that it isn‘t). Watching it for the first time in years, I immediately traveled back in time to the first night I viewed it, just after 12am on a Thursday morning on TV. After watching it the first time, I discussed, out loud and at length the ideas behind the movie to myself. At that moment I was no longer the little boy whose favorite film was BASEketball (1998); I was a critic and philosopher with a keen eye for interpretation. Of course I was fourteen.

Donnie Darko tells the story of the titular character (Jake Gyllenhaal), a troubled young high schooler with a bad habit of sleepwalking. His therapist believes he may by schizophrenic and his parents do their best but are simply overwhelmed by their brilliant but depressed son. One night after wondering off in the dark again, Donnie meets Frank, a six-foot-tall man in a creepy rabbit costume who informs him the world will end in a few weeks time. The next morning he wonders back home to find a jet engine had crashed into his bedroom and no one has any idea where it came from.

Memories notwithstanding, I still enjoyed watching Donnie Darko again. The photography and the set design of the film really does bring you into the 1980’s world of the characters. It’s a perfect backdrop for the feeling of impending doom one feels watching Donnie Darko, especially when faced with Frank, Donnie’s time traveling rabbit friend.

The entire movie, we see most things from the perspective of an increasingly hostile Donnie. After the arrival of Frank he sees more and more strange things happening including globs of effervescent strings leading people as they walk and a book that seems to explain everything he’s experiencing, published by a local author.

The “normal” world around him also becomes increasingly bizarre through the oppressive power of his health instructor Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant). Playing the part of the resident closed minded religious zealot, Beth Grant steals every scene she’s in and seems to relish in a part that lets the character actress flourish. The young Jena Malone also appears as the new girl in town and Donnie’s love interest. She seems drawn to the erratic Donnie and while she may be too young and naive to know he’s trouble, she stumbles down the rabbit hole with an eerie sense of control. There is one scene where Donnie asks her and his friends to leave a party with him to break into a house. She oddly enough takes it in stride as if she knew what he would do.

Many people, including myself  have conflicting theories as to what’s really going on in Donnie Darko. I won’t bore you with my ramblings but I will return to the subject of director/writer Richard Kelly and his assumed ineptitude. After the success of Donnie Darko he wrote the story for the vapid Tony Scott film Domino (2005) and in 2009 he directed a famously maligned film called The Box starring Cameron Diaz.

He's just as surprised at his lack of success as you are

Both films pale in comparison to the truly awful Southland Tales (2006) which, like Donnie Darko tried to insert metaphysics into the equation. To me Richard Kelly is like director Troy Duffy only with more tact. At his worst, his movies ramble on and on, raveling in their own intricacies yet looking visually like a used cocktail dress. He’s like the guy in your college dorm room who wouldn’t shut up about existentialism because he read an excerpt from Heidegger’s Gelassenheit.

But where Southland Tales failed miserably, Donnie Darko truly soared. It’s a moody, dark and trippy movie that opened my eyes to the possibilities of film. Like the movie’s themes about time and space, I was shuffled back and forth between now and my childhood. Back to a time when I was still figuring out my place in the world and forth to a journey still unfinished.

Final Grade: A