DONNIE DARKO [2001] review

DONNIE DARKO is a strangely fascinating crazy movie. This isn’t a movie made to be easily understood. It’s definitely a WTF movie. I couldn’t even look at one of the characters, that image was too disturbing, had to block the screen with my hand when that character, Frank, was on screen. Scenes in the movie range from laugh out loud funny caused by teen rebellion to rage inducing against the conservatism of the burbs, to mystical mind travel through time all very nicely tied to a great 80’s soundtrack.

I am now a Jake Gyllenhaal fan. Having first taken notice of him in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and now DONNIE DARKO, I am interested in seeing his other movies. Jena Malone played the perfect high school girlfriend. It made me think how that’s what I really want, a girlfriend like you had back in high school. Such a simple beauty. Tragic and beautiful.

The story includes elements of theoretical physics, determinism vs. free will, religion, and changing fate. What it doesn’t include are unimportant things like what do Donnie’s parents do for a living? Why don’t the parents care that the kids swear at the dinner table?

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