Synopsis
Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes to find himself in the middle of a road overlooking “Middlesex,” Virginia. Over dinner, his older sister (Maggie Gyllenhaal) stuns their father (Holmes Osborne) with the news that she’s voting for Dukakis. Brother and sister start bickering and she urges Donnie to explain to their mom (Mary McDonnell) why he’s stopped taking his medication. Mom later questions her sullen boy about where he goes at night. “What happened to my son? I don’t recognize this person today.”
A supernatural voice wakes Donnie and lures him outside. Donnie encounters a six-foot tall figure wearing a demonic looking rabbit costume. Giving the name of “Frank,” the rabbit notifies Donnie, “28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds. That is when the world will end.” While Donnie wanders around in his sleep, a jet engine plummets out of the sky and crashes through his bedroom. Government agents are at a loss to explain this. They can’t find the plane the engine belonged to.
Donnie’s English teacher Miss Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) matches him with a bright transfer student (Jena Malone) whom Donnie becomes smitten with. There is no love lost between him and a gym instructor (Beth Grant) who forces her class to watch the videos of a local self-help guru named Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze). Cunningham preaches that all human decisions fall on a lifeline between love and fear. Donnie refuses to believe that life can be lumped into two categories at the expense of everything else.
Donnie’s nocturnal encounters with Frank continue. When Donnie asks the rabbit where he comes from, Frank replies, “Do you believe in time travel?” Donnie’s science teacher (Noah Wylie) then gives him a book called The Philosophy of Time Travel, written by a neighborhood spinster the kids call “Grandma Death.” The book corroborates the visions Donnie has been having. His psychiatrist (Katharine Ross) believes him to be a paranoid schizophrenic. Donnie keeps marking the days until the end of the world.
Production history
A native of Midlothian, Virginia, Richard Kelly graduated from USC Film School in 1997 and started writing his first screenplay. Kelly began with an ambition to create something personal about the late ‘80s. He had an idea about a jet engine falling on a house, which in Kelly’s mind, “seemed to represent a death knell for the Reagan era.” His idea became a mystery when he decided that the plane wouldn’t be found. The only explanation Kelly could think to justify this was that the plane came from the future.
With the help of his producing partner Sean McKittrick – who was working as an assistant at New Line – Donnie Darko got Kelly signed to the powerful Creative Artists Agency. The script was passed around town and developed the reputation as a great writing sample, but one that would be impossible to produce. No one was interested in buying it. That changed when Kelly and McKittrick received word that actor Jason Schwartzman was interested in the project.
Once Schwartzman was attached, Drew Barrymore and her producing partner Nancy Juvonen wanted to get involved. The actress agreed to play Miss Pomeroy if Kelly allowed her company Flower Films to produce the film. Barrymore’s commitment netted $4.5 million in financing, but her schedule demanded that Kelly start shooting the film by July 2000. This conflicted with Schwartzman’s availability and he had to drop out. 19-year-old Jake Gyllenhaal won the role of Donnie Darko.
With Barrymore able to attract Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wylie, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Mary McDonnell to the cast, the film was shot in the Los Angeles area in 28 days. Donnie Darko screened at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2001, but struggled to find a distributor. Faced with the prospect of going straight to video, Kelly cut ten minutes from the film and went with cheaper musical cues. Distributed on a mere 58 screens in the wake of 9/11, the dark and challenging film grossed only $517,375 in the U.S.
It was on cable and DVD that Donnie Darko found its audience. The film built such an avid fan base that in 2004, Kelly was able to assemble a “Director’s Cut” and receive a limited theatrical release. Among the changes was a running time 20 minutes longer than the original (including more classroom scenes with Miss Pomeroy), revised musical cues, an improved sound mix, and chapter headings from The Philosophy of Time Travel, which were inserted to enhance the science fiction aspects of the film.
Opinion
Of all the ways you can approach Donnie Darko – as a portrait of teenage angst, a bloodless horror movie, a nostalgic trip through the ‘80s, a science fiction tale concerning time travel, or a satire of all of the above – what’s most exciting about Richard Kelly’s debut is how the audience ends up being empowered to give the movie its form and definition. It doesn’t barrel its way down any one genre or crib from other filmmakers for its creative inspiration. This is a movie truly in a class of its own.
The screenplay is teeming with wonderful details - a Bush/Dukakis debate, a dance troupe called Sparkle Motion, a debate over The Smurfs – that may be part of a larger puzzle, or might not mean anything. The writing features a lot of sharp wit - laced with barbs toward the public school system - while engaging all sorts of cool ideas about time travel and alternate universes in the process. An alternate title might have been It’s A Miserable Life, as the film could be summed up as It’s A Wonderful Life in reverse.
The casting is better than any first time director could ask for, particularly the Gyllenhaals, Patrick Swayze, and Holmes Osborne and Mary McDonnell as Donnie’s sympathetic parents. Veteran camera operator Steven Poster lends the cinematography a vivid, dreamlike feel, while the original music by Michael Andrew compliments that mood as well. I doubt that Kelly has any better idea what’s going on here than anyone watching for the first time will, but your guess will be at least as good as the person sitting next to you.
Joel Pearce at DVD Verdict writes, “I am a big fan of Donnie Darko. It strikes a near-perfect balance between coherence and ambiguity, perfectly capturing the reality of growing up in the ’80s while spinning a wild tale of either dimensions or dementia. This flirtation with clarity provides one of the greatest joys of the film, which is attempting to unravel the complex web of connections afterwards over a couple of beers with other movie nerds. It sits on the razor’s edge of insanity, but manages to almost sort itself out at the end.”
“The skill with which Kelly orchestrates the film is impressive, even if he oversteps his own boundaries in a few places with much pointless imagery and some scenes that are unnecessary and only beneficial if you’ve got a hard-on for listening to director’s explain their work on commentary tracks. Still, I do appreciate the depth and intellectual nature of the film and especially the fact that Kelly never takes pains to explain the meaning of the film with needless exposition,” says The Vocabularist at Movie Cynics.
Vince Leo at QWipster’s Movie Reviews writes, “While I enjoyed Donnie Darko quite a bit, I don’t recommend this film to everyone. If you like David Lynch, The Twilight Zone, and offbeat comic book stories, Donnie Darko will probably hit a home run with you. Those that hate films that are strange and seemingly make no sense whatsoever probably would do better to skip this one, as even the most savvy of viewers will not understand the movie entirely the first go around.”
“Sit next to the boy you think is the cutest.” If only high school could have been this cool. View a scene from Donnie Darko featuring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Beth Grant, Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore and Noah Wylie set to the Tears For Fears tune “Head Over Heels.”
11 responses so far ↓
1 Mrs. Thuro // Mar 25, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I watched this after having a high recommendation from one of those avid fans. I just didn’t get it. I tried really hard, maybe I was trying too hard, but I was completely lost. I may need to watch it again, now that I’ve read more on the film. It’s not that I need my movies spelled out for me (The Fountain is one of my all time favorites), but I just couldn’t connect on any level here, and like you said there were plenty of levels to choose from. However, it’s been 3 years or so, but I can still remember parts of the movie vividly, and that’s saying something.
2 AR // Mar 25, 2008 at 9:47 pm
I agree very much with the Movie Cynics review (thanks btw), though I would probably go so far as to give it a 9 out of 10.
I haven’t seen the director’s cut or listened to commentary, but viewed on its own terms, I think I pretty much “got it.” Mostly, I think the film suffers from an overload of ideas and detail that don’t add anything to the overall structure. It’s interesting that he saw the script as being about the 80’s, since that aspect worked the least for me.
I sound very critical, yet I do like the film very much. It’s possible that the ravenous young fanbase, convinced that the film is so utterly deep or unfathomable, just turns me off.
3 Joe Valdez // Mar 26, 2008 at 2:07 am
Mrs. Thuro: As Vince Leo said, there is definitely a David Lynch and/or comic book vibe to the movie, so if neither one of those genres are your cup o’ tea I could understand you feeling there was nothing for you here. You might want to give Donnie Darko another shot, ignoring what the avid fans like me say and just accept the movie for what it is. I can appreciate it just in terms of the performances. Swayze rules.
AR: Very well articulated. I’m glad you liked Donnie Darko. I tend to enjoy movies overloaded with ideas and details though. I would not want to see what a 90-minute, workman-like Apocalypse Now looked like. Or a concise Blade Runner. Or the studio’s cut of Pulp Fiction. Yet give an inch to any artist and what you can end up with is Southland Tales which is a complete train wreck of ideas and details.
4 Adam R // Mar 26, 2008 at 7:08 am
Great take, Joe. I think you’d enjoy reading Jim Emerson’s exhaustive essay on the subject, it’s an interesting analysis on the film’s themes and story.
More than the story, I just love occupying Middlesex as a viewer — like how the theater is showing Evil Dead, and the little moments with Donnie’s parents. So many great details that keep me coming back.
5 AR // Mar 26, 2008 at 9:30 am
I had thought of asking if you’d seen Southland Tales or not. The trailer and reviews had me thinking precisely the same thing. As overloaded as Donnie Darko is, it’s mostly cohesive and works as a whole, but I could see that sensibility taken to excess w/poor results.
It’s not so much a matter of length as cohesion. I love all the films you mentioned, so it’s not as if I altogether dislike detail and digression.
6 Hedwig // Mar 26, 2008 at 12:20 pm
“what’s most exciting about Richard Kelly’s debut is how the audience ends up being empowered to give the movie its form and definition”
Exactly! I could not agree with you more. That’s also, I think, why the director’s cut didn’t work: the director’s own vision interfered with your own way of looking at the story, and it’s bothersome rather than helpful.
I must’ve seen this film about 15 times. I was 17, I think, when I first saw it, and just like The Catcher in the Rye did two years earlier, it connected me on an incredibly strong level. Now, at a bit more of a remove, I can see some of the flaws, and I no longer think it’s the greatest movie ever made, but it remains close to my heart.
As for Southland Tales, I just saw it last weekend and loved it, but it is totally out of control, and can’t measure up to Donnie Darko. I greatly enjoyed it, and I’ll definitely watch it again, but for all its sprawling detail, it has no emotional depth. Nothing to compare to the sharp depiction of ‘the Pain of Puberty’, in any case.
7 Marilyn // Mar 28, 2008 at 1:20 pm
A Korean friend of mine who was taking a class in adolescent psychology for her doctoral course work was given a choice between reading (not watching) The Virgin Suicides or watching Donnie Darko. She chose the latter and asked me to help her make sense of it. I had seen it once before and related to it more on a scifi level. I connected strongly with the airplane motor because in 1980, a DC-10 jumbo jet crashed and burned at my home airport (O’Hare) because an engine fell off. It was indeed the stuff of nightmares, at least for people living in Chicago at the time.
Watching it a second time with her, the adolescent longings and philosophy came to the forefront–perhaps because that’s what I was told to look for. Still, there were so many things that seemed right about that “interpretation,” from parental behavior ,to taking behavior modification drugs (wasn’t every kid on Ritalin by then?), to looking for wisdom from an old person (something people tend to lose when they reach adulthood). I was a big fan of Jena Malone from her gut-wrenching turn in Ellen Foster, and it seemed that her role in that TV film helped tinge this one with its luminous tragedy and hope. The film was Catcher in the Rye to a great extent, or at least referenced unconsciously that seminal work on adolescence.
Donnie Darko seemed less complicated to me on a second viewing. That didn’t destroy its magic for me, however. To me, the film was like a scenic tour through an adolescent mind–crazed, mixed up, omnipotent, romantic, doomed. It’s really a great achievement.
8 Joe Valdez // Mar 28, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Adam: Thanks for issuing that link. Emerson’s essay was long but I did enjoy it. What was interesting about is that he chose to highlight the teenage angst aspects of the film, which I glanced over in favor of the science fiction/fantasy elements.
I could write a whole essay on how cool it would be to spend Halloween in Middlesex as a teenager. Get to live across the street from Mary McDonnell & Maggie Gyllenhaal, see a jet engine fall on their house and have Drew Barrymore as your English teacher. This would make having to sit through Jim Cunningham videos worth while!
AR: I guess I’m able to pay attention to idiot savants and people who ramble for two minutes before making their point, so when movies do the same thing, I can just accept them for that. However even David Peoples says he watches Blade Runner and wishes the story had the clarity of the visuals, so I think you make a strong point about cohesion as a necessity in movies.
Hedwig: Check out the Jim Emerson article that Adam linked if you haven’t already. He responded to the growing pains of Donnie Darko much the same way that you did. Your teenage years must have been more tempestuous than mine because I responded to the film as a Twilight Zone episode more than I did Catcher In The Rye. That’s one of the cool things about Donnie Darko; two film lovers can walk away from it having seen two completely different movies. Thanks for commenting.
Marilyn: Too often I put people into boxes where movies with science fiction or horror elements are not received well by women, just like movies where actors suddenly break into song or dance are not suitable for men. Thanks for reminding me that great movies are great and can be enjoyed by everyone. Unless they are from Korea. I cannot imagine Donnie Darko making any sense to your friend!
9 Marilyn // Mar 29, 2008 at 6:34 am
Ha ha! Well, she sort of “got it,” at least was able to write about it with my guidance.
As to horror and scifi, I think you’ll find a lot of women who love both, including me.
10 Daniel // Apr 7, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Great review of a movie that I’ve been meaning to revisit for a while. I think I was sucked in by the cinematography that you mention more than most people. It really is “dream-like.” If you’re not hooked in by the first 15 minutes of this movie, you’re not really going to get much more out of the rest of it.
11 Elena // Apr 19, 2008 at 5:04 pm
I loved Donnie Darko to death. Is my favorite movie now. I would definitely recommend it. I’m suprised that I actually understood it. It is a very complicated film. Time travel movies always are. I had to pause it and think about what was happening about ten times! To understand the whole movie you cannot miss one line or else the rest of it will be impossible to figure out. People should make more movies that are hard on your brain!
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