Interesting review from our local paper:
Friday, February 18, 2005
'Donnie' retains its mystery
By VERN PERRY
The Orange County Register
Special editions of a weird and wonderful cult film and a fact-based drama about a young man's journey from middle-class medical student to communist revolutionary are this week's DVD picks.
How do you describe "Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut" (Fox, 2001; rated R; original 2.35:1 widescreen format enhanced for 16:9 televisions; Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound; $26.98)? Well, if you take the teen angst of "Catcher in the Rye's" Holden Caulfield and add to it the ironic science-fiction humor of Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, you might end up with this totally off-the-wall film about a high school student who has visions of a 6-foot rabbit that warns the teenager that the world is going to end in "28 days, six hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds."
Is Donnie crazy? After all, he's on medication and seeing a shrink. Or could the whole thing be true? And what does all of this have to do with time travel? And where did the jet engine come from that crashed through Donnie's suburban bedroom one night when he was out sleepwalking?
If it sounds wacky, that's because it is. But thanks to an uncompromising original script by Richard Kelly, who also directed, "Donnie Darko" wisely doesn't supply the answers to all of these questions, but it does dazzle you with fine performances and bravura filmmaking. What you get out of this film is directly proportional to the amount of thought you put into what you are seeing.
Jake Gyllenhaal is absolutely dead-on as the title character, a young man teetering on the brink of sanity but also a young man concerned about sex and girls. Gyllenhaal gets solid support from Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osborne as his concerned but loving parents and from real-life sister Maggie Gyllenhaal as his hopefully Harvard-bound older sister. The fine cast also includes Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle as sympathetic teachers, Beth Grant as an uptight phys-ed teacher, Patrick Swayze as a smarmy self-help guru and Katharine Ross as Donnie's shrink.
To "Donnie's" cult fans who are concerned that the 20 additional minutes Kelly restored to the film's original release and original DVD release will explain too much, all I have to say is that you have nothing to worry about. The film remains charmingly and cunningly convoluted, and far from conventional.
The two-disc package is loaded with other extras, too, including a fun commentary track by Kelly and filmmaking pal Kevin Smith. And while Smith had nothing to do with the film, he does add some nice humor to the commentary.
In addition, there is an interesting hour-long production diary, with optional commentary by director of photography Steven Poster, a storyboard-to-screen feature and a look at the film's cult following.
Grades
Movie: B+ Picture: A
Sound: A Extras: A
(This reviewer is generally not very forgiving).
Wow, that was a well written review!
I wish our local papers had reviewers that well spoken.
We have to look forward to things like
" dude.. it sucked. It was boring. It was slow."
and that can apply to any movie... AND worse yet, be considered an actual review! !
Another thing I was thinking about with that movie is the schitzo.. diagnosis donnie recieved.
And .. ( see if you can follow this train of thought.. )
People with schitzophrenia often times report seeing incomplete people as part of thier hallucinations. Faces with no bodies, body parts with no heads etc..
If we live in a world , universe being the better term here, that has several dimensions that most people are not even aware of, are schitzophrenia patients just in a state of hightened awareness? Are thier sences more keen then ours? Do they have an ability that is found in all humans , but because of a chemical ( what we call BALANCE) in our brians , we can not percieve this? Schitzophrenia causes many diffrent chemicals in the brain to stop being produced, be produced too low to be usefull, or sometimes be produced in almost a hyper mode..
What if?
The film also features one of my favorite young actresses as Darko's girlfriend, Jena Malone. I became a fan originally after seeing her in a made-for-television feature called "Ellen Foster". She was also very good as the pregnant Christian girl in last year's wicked "Saved". She had a small role in "Cold Mountain", as the ferry girl who gets shot after offering a quickie to Jude Law and/or Phillip Seymour Hoffman. She appeared to good effect in the TV docudrama "Cheaters" with Jeff Daniels as well.
Beth Grant, who plays the obnoxious dance team Mom/phys ed instructor/supporter of Patrick Swayze's self help program, did a memorable turn as the ghost in Cordelia's apartment in an early "Angel" episode.
I liked "Donnie Darko" a lot even though I'm not sure I have a coherent theory as to what exactly happened. Some non-professional reviews can be found at:
http://www.epinions.com
It will likely remain as another of the films one loves to hate (or hates to love, whichever). If it is a parallel universe in which a duplicate Earth is acting out a doomsday scenario and there is a time continuum loop which corrects it, does the duplicate Earth end?
I love films that make you think. I saw a British film in the late 70's called THE SHOUT. I only saw it once,I don't even know if it was ever released on video over here. I still haven't figured it out.
What was it about?
Would you recommend it?
Well I haven't seen it in almost 30 years but here goes; A man and woman live on an isolated farm, the man is an experimental music composer.
A man shows up at their door. He claims he can shout people to death, a skill he picked up from Aboriginal magicians. It starred Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt, and Tim Curry.
The two reviews I've read really didn't like it at all.
But I love really bizarre movies so most of my favs get shot down by reviewers anyway.
The thing I am still thinking about is , Could the man really do what hwe said? Is he just a madman?
Or was he a figment of the composer's imagination?
Oh. It was one of those kinds of movies...
where you are left wondering wich perception of the movie was reality ?
Yeah, those are MY favorites as well.
I will see if that move is available. It sounds enjoyable.
I have heard rumor of an aboriginal 'song' that was invented to lull someone into death. It was sort of a chat/howl. I dont remember if it was the sort of song that was just tradition to SING to the dying to offer peace/solstice.. or if it was a type of song that was supposed to KILL the listener.
But if it were the later.. wouldnt it kill the singer as well?
!i!Spoiler Alert!i! Donnie Darko
!i!i!Spoiler Alert!i!i!
If you have not seen the Director's Cut yet, you may be able to deduce this yourself. Otherwise, continue on.
First I'm going to explain a few things.
The Artifact- Item created out of metal from the Primary Universe. It's entrance into the Tangent Universe starts the events that will ultimately bring to the destruction of either the Primary or the Tangent Universe. (The artifact is the plane engine)
The Living Conduit- Basically the living conduit is the the one who will be able to choose which universe is destroyed. He is given powers to see the fourth dimension and move or send things through it (Donnie Darko)
---
Ok, this is how I'm pretty sure it went down.
The engine comes from the primary universe. When the engine breaks through it, creates a tangent universe. The engine should have killed Donnie, thus destroying the Living Conduit. The Problem being, if Donnie dies, no one can stop the end of the world that will happen when the two unierses split too far and destroy each other. Frank saves Donnie by waking him up and making him leave his bed.
The story the goes on, blah blah blah.We then learn this: Donnie is the Living Condit, thus he is the one who can control time and edit, rewind, and fast forward, just like TiVo. Frank doesn't have this power. Now you must remember, everything that happens in the movie is taking place in the tangent universe, not the Primary universe. When Frank says the world is going to end, it doesn't mean this can't be stopped.
Now, we aren't shown how the Tangent Universe is destroyed, howeve'r this is how I sspeculate Donnie does it:
Donnie sends Frank back (we see him with his eye gone in the movie theater, so he must have lived that universe atleast once) to save him and also guide him a little. Donnie then rewinds time and dies in the Primary universe. With the tangent universe in constant flux (Frank is sent back each time by Donnie, Donnie lives and thus the end is the tangent universe is destroyed), the tangent universe is destroyed while the Primary universe lives on. At the cost of Donnie's life, he is able to avert the destruction of the primary universe.
Also, take note where the engine comes from: When Donnie rewinds time, the plane that Donnie's mother and sister are on is being torn apart by the vortex created by the two universes. THe engines falls off the plane and we see it falling in the distance...
Posted in white so as not to mistakenly spoil anyone who didn't want spoilers. This is all speculation on my part, with some help fromt he Philosophy of Time Travel wriiten by Grandma Death. There as some mor, but I've gotta leave right now, if I remember anything else I'll come back.
Goes along with my parallel universe concept -- mix that together with a concept of time travel and you have an enigma but you could be very close.
Donne Dark was a superb movie. It really got me thinking. I feel that he was able to travel through time, but only because he was in an alternate state of mind. He was capable of traveling through GODS, chosen path. So he had time until he was caught, for killing the man in the bunny suite. Frank was just him seeing the future. And Frank allowed him to go back and be in his bed and get crushed by the jet engine because Frank killed his g/f, and i do believe she was pregnant. So becuase Donnie ended franks life, frank ended donnies.
What made you think she was pregnant? Was it because of how bad Frank felt when he killed her?
They had just had sex. Nobody's pregnant that fast.
I've been a fan of this movie for years, and I think I have this worked out now.
Spoilers ahead...
We start in the primary universe. You've got your unbalanced guy in a (mostly) normal family, and everything's OK.
THEN, through a cosmic hiccup, Donnie's insanity gives him a heads-up as to what's happening, and he leaves his room on one of his sleep-walking adventures just before a jet engine destroys his room which would have killed him.
This creates an inherently unstable, parallel universe(called the Tangent universe for those who've read The Philosophy of Time Travel).
God's like "Oh, ****!" and sends an "angel" (not sure if that's really what it is), in the form of Frank, to get rid of this other universe and stop them both from exploding.
So Frank, being a master manipulator, leads Donnie to perform all these destructive acts in his highly suggestible sleepwalking state, setting up the pieces to ensure that Donnie makes the right choice. Donnie is imbued with super-natural powers (Super-strong:Can put the ax through the solid bronze head of the Mongrel, Control over Water and Metal: The knife and water scene with Donnie during the PTA meeting, gives us a hint as to what will happen to Frank[notice the eye])
So Frank leads Donnie to: a) flood the school, causing him to meet Gretchen(important later), and causes Drew Barrymore to be fired(also important later); b) burn down Jim Cunningham's house, causing Mrs. Farmer to ask Donnie's mom to chaperone, allowing them to throw the party, where 1) Donnie and Gretchen have sex, and 2) Donnie receives the vision with Drew's parting words, "Cellar Door"(she wouldn't have said them unless she was being fired), and they go to Grandma Death's, where Donnie fulfills the Frank destiny, and loses Gretchen.
Now, having lost Gretchen, killed Frank, and waiting to be arrested for the flooding of the school, decides he has nothing to live for, and figures out THE PLAN. He then takes the engine from his mother's plane with his water and metal powers, and sends it through the portal, where Primary Universe Donnie, having received visions of this other universe, decides to stay in bed, sacrificing himself so that all these people can live.
So THAT is where the engine came from, and there is, I think, the truth of what happened.
This would also explain why he lays there and laughes. He knows what is going to happen and is ok with it.
Great analysis and likely correct. The enigmatic nature of the film is what draws people to it and it is one of those films that one has to concentrate on the progress of the story. It's not just a time travel story but it's about fate and that there are threads of time running parallel to ours. A philisophical drama is often misunderstood as playing tricks on the head and in the new version that is satisfactorialy put to rest. I guess, like "Dark City," it will always have its fan base as a cult classic. Ditto "Blade Runner."
Taliesin181 wrote:
... having received visions of this other universe, decides to stay in bed, sacrificing himself so that all these people can live...
I always wondered about that. Didn't quite get the ending which of course just made me watch the movie over and over! My 21 year old son is also a huge fan of Donnie Darko so we watch the movie together quite often.
Thanks for your insight folks; I will share this site with Ryan.
