To put it simply, Donnie Darko is a cult classic. It draws legions of fans towards it, with people creating websites dedicated to the 'study' of the movie. It was so popular that a director's cut, the version which I base my comments on, has been made. It's a low budget film that featured an excellent cast which premiered in the pretigous Sundunce, with an exceptionally mind-blowing story. Or in my case, mind-boggling...



The poster and Jake Gyllenhaal as the principle character. Chilling look plus a baby-face...

Frankly, till now, the the whole concept of Donnie Darko still eludes me, though I have to admit that the styles of filming and the weaving of the entire story-line is quite impressive.


In a nutshell...

Basically, it tells the story of a 16-year old high-school student, Donnie, who was deemed mentally unstable by most. He goes for therapy, sleepwalks, takes psychotropic medication and experiences hallucinations. In particular, these hallucinations came in the form of a man dressed in a hedious rabbit suit by the name of Frank, who ordered him to do destructive things and informed him that the end of the world is coming. More eeriely, Frank's instructions appeared to point him in the direction of a revelation - a revelation that Donnie was central in a corrupted tangent universe, and that it was his reponsibility to bring this tangent universe back to the primary universe by reversing time.

What??? What primary universe??? What tangent universe??? Wat tokking u???

That's basically where I got stuck. No, actually, I kinda understand the whole concept about the various universe. Let me try to explain:

Remember Back to the Future 2 when Dr Emmett Brown was explaining how they came to the disatrous 1985 instead of the 1985 they were used to? Basically, according to him, because something happened during their travel into the future which had a direct impact on events that happened in the 50s, an alternate universe had been created.

It's a similar concept here. Just that there was no explanation on why the fabric of time was disrupted, creating an alternate October 1988 (aka 'tangent universe') which Donnie was living in. Nevertheless, according to a book which Frank had led him to find, this tangent universe is highly unstable and will collapse into itself soon, leading to the end of the world. Donnie's mission, hence, is to reverse this and save all those whom he loves.

What I didn't quite understand was, actually, how the whole time-line works, and the various characters' roles in the whole time-travel thingy.

However, that aside, the story is very engrossing and is one that makes you ponder over it even after you've finished watching it. Donneie Darko fans claim that it takes more than one viewing to understand the movie, and I guess they're right. In fact, it actually took one article by an IMDB user to make me want to revisit the movie and pick out all the clues which I had missed in my first, rather muddled, viewing. It's like movies like The Machinist or In My Father's Den, but it's definitely more complicated than those. Then again it probably is just because I'm not familiar with the science fiction genre which the movie relies heavily on as a style.

Which article is that? Click here to see. But before you do that, a word of advise - watch this movie first, then read the article. After that, watch it a 2nd and perhaps a 3rd time if one was so inclined.

So is it a movie about a mentally-ill teenager on the lines of A Beautiful Mind? Or is it a science fiction drama about time travel like Back To The Future? Or is it simply a drama studying the intra- and inter-personal relationships of teenagers in the 1980s? It's your guess.


The performances...

The characters were real and very well-played by everyone from the leads to the smaller casts. Jake Gyllenhaal's performace as Donnie reminds me that he has been worth all his acting awards and nominations to date. It's hard to believe that he would play Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain just a few years later. A very eerie yet affecting performance as the deeply disturbed and very lonely youth. But darn! That recent scruffy, bearded look not just sooo not him! Makes him easily 10 years older than he really is. But that aside, if anything, one should just watch Donnie Darko for this central performance.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jake's real life big sister, plays... guess what - Donnie's big sister. She doesn't have much screen time, yet the inclusion of the character adds a realistic sense of sibling rivalry especially between the high-flying sister and the underachieving seemingly mentally-ill younger brother.

Drew Barrymore has a small role in here as Donnie's literature teacher who is persecuted by a conservative society just because she was able to see things in a different light. I haven't found out the meaning behind her character, so I'll probably update you only if I've gotten that figured out. Anyhow, for now she probably is one of those characters who emphatises with Donnie and allows him to voice his opinions without penalizing him for it.

Then there is Patrick Swayze who's so good at what he played that I so wanted to kick him in the balls. He plays this motivational speaker, Jim Cunningham, who sprouts nonsense in such a way that people buy it. "Life is all about fear and love..." What da...??? Call me a stuck-in-the-mud but motivational speakers irk me. So imagine how good that felt in the scene where Donnie trashes him (verbally, not physically lar) during one of his motivational seminars. And yes, he got a deserved ending :P

There are also may other colourful characters which certainly add much life to the movie, like the ultra-conservative teacher (played by Beth Grant) who was so drawn in by Cunningham that it governed her life. There's also Barrymore's character's husband (played by Noah Wyle) who was the one who gave Donnie the book on time travel, 'Grandma Death' who wrote the book and was persecuted for it, the strong but level-headed mother (played byMary McDonnell) and Gretchen (played by Jena Malone), his love interest who never judged him.


Recommended?

Do see the following stats as of Dec 2006...

- Ranked #103 out of 250 of the top movies at IMDB.com

- Voted #5 in the list of Australia's 10 favorite movies

- Voted #9 in Film4's '50 Films To See Before You Die'

It may not sit well with some, but it's teachniques in story-telling, camera movement, acting and many other aspects makes this one worth catching.

In fact, I might say - challenge yourself.


Just some other stuff you might wanna know...

The above was written based on the director's cut, which includes 20 minutes of extra footage and numerous touch-ups to the original, like including images of the pages of the time-travel book, and even adding in other sounds like insect sounds. Quite an extensive 'make-over' for a director's cut. So I'm not sure how the original theatrical release was like and I won't be able to compare.

This is director Richard Kelly's debut film.

The movie was shot in 28 days, exactly the time-span of the movie itself, on a budget of under US$5 million.


Must visit...

The official website is a must visit. Very very impressive layout and design. This website was designed as something to help audiences understand better the whole idea behind the movie after it was released in theatres. Much of what was in the director's cut was inspired from the website.

A word of caution though - You might wanna make sure u have lots of time on hand before you navigate the website. But believe me, it's a very interesting experience.

Click here to visit the official website - http://www.donniedarko.com/

The of course, how can you miss this one: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/