Donnie Darko and Donnie Darko Director's Cut: Part 1

Donnie Darko is a movie I saw three years ago for the first time.  I remember watching it twice and even after the second watch having no idea what the hell was going on in the movie.  The overarching plot about time travel didn't seem to make any sense, there were a few things here and there that I caught on to but overall I had no idea what to make of it.  That being said I still enjoyed Donnie Darko because of its characters and interactions.  It had a great cast for its time including Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, and even a young Seth Rogen.

Jake Gyllenhaal is the titular Donnie Darko, a teenage boy who is extremely intelligent but has some rather serious emotional issues.  In the beginning of the film Donnie is a rather unlikable character, seemingly being a jerk to whoever he talks to be it his parents or sisters.  During one early scene in which he smokes a cigarette in front of his younger sister, he threatens to put her hamster in the garbage disposal if she tells their mom about the smoking.  However, as the movie progresses we see that Donnie is actually very likable (at least to me) by being extremely intelligent and logical.  In fact, he seems so out of place with the rest of the characters except his would-be girlfriend Gretchen.  Another early scene shows Donnie hanging out, drinking whiskey, and shooting bottles with his two friends; the friends are talking about a gang bang scenario involving the Smurfs and Smurfette with Papa Smurf filming (this is not a movie for children as it shows "average" teenage guys talking among themselves and as such many of the sexual frustrations of being a teenager are apparent through conversation and other means).  Donnie then proceeds to explain to them in explicit detail exactly why this scenario would not be logical or even possible in the world of the Smurfs.  Donnie has a bit of a rough start but he shortly makes up for it by showing how he is simply an average, albeit very intelligent, teenage boy just trying to find his place in the world and by the end reaches the point of being a strong and respectable, even likable character.

Jake Gyllenhaal gives a phenomenal performance as the awkward teenage boy but he isn't the only strong character.  Jena Malone does an exceptional job in the (more important than you might think) role of the girlfriend while Patrick Swayze does his usual thing as a cheesy '80s public speaker and self-help author.  Drew Barrymore is an English teacher who almost cares too much and Noah Wyle is a science teacher who has a fascination with time travel and guides Donnie through a decent part of the movie.  There are many other characters I could talk about as well that are all very well developed but I think you get the point.

As great as the characters are in Donnie Darko the plot suffers heavily from too much editing.  Think for a minute would you, of any great movie or book you read which had unusual occurrences and strange events that seemed to make no sense but were actually revealed to be extremely important in a handy wrap-up of what happened at the end.  Now, imagine that wrap-up were completely cut out and the viewer is left trying to decipher the incredibly obscure rules of this fictional world.  That's the biggest flaw with Donnie Darko.

The plot of the movie revolves around Donnie and his continual changing perception of his world.  Early in the movie he sleepwalks out of his bed following a 6-foot tall, creepy looking rabbit named Frank.  Frank lures Donnie out of his bed to a golf course where he proceeds to tell Donnie that the world will end in exactly 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.  Right about the time this happens a large jet engine falls out of the sky and crashes through the roof of Donnie's house into his bedroom.  If Frank hadn't lured Donnie out of the house he would have been killed by the jet engine.  Throughout the course of the movie Frank asks Donnie to do illegal and dangerous things, things that never physically hurt anyone but that cause other things to happen.  No I'm not going into any more detail than that.  Interesting setup, right?  The problem is that we, the audience, never know what to expect: we have no idea what the goal is, what is at stake, why it's important that Donnie do these things, and where the people of the town all fit into the equation.  And, the answers are never revealed.  The ending is incredibly ambiguous, not as to what happened, but as to why and how it happened.  Nothing seems to make sense and things start happening apparently randomly in the last third of the movie with little or no explanation as to the character motivations other than Donnie's.

Now that we have the strongest and weakest aspects out of the way lets talk about how the movie looks and feels: fantastic.  The whole movie is shot with an off-putting blue lens which does an excellent job of keeping the audience with a feeling of isolation in this world.  All of the characters act a little bit off as if they have something bothering them but don't know what it is.  On top of that there are a few character turns that were completely unexpected but make total sense.  Finally, the whole film was shot as if it were a horror movie, making common use of the empty space technique (I'm sure that isn't what it's actually called but it's where the camera shows a sudden clearing of empty space, an example would be a person leaning down below the camera from a closeup so that the audience has a sudden chance to see the monster standing behind them with claws ready to disembowel).  Every frame of Donnie Darko was shot with a love and care rarely seen in movies and everything feels precise and needed; unfortunately we needed a bit more to actually understand what's going on.

Overall Donnie Darko is a very good movie, but not great, and it's on Netflix.  Normally I would give my recommendation and say "go watch it" and I still say that to the lazy moviegoer who just wants to watch something unusual and refreshing but for those of us willing to go out and find a particular movie I have something better in store for you so you should skip out on Donnie Darko.

Verdict,
7.5/10

This was getting very, very long so I decided to do it in two parts.  Part 2 will cover the movie you should watch if you're willing to go out and find it: Donnie Darko Director's Cut