A review of one of my favourite films ever...

Donnie Darko is that rare and valuable find: a truly original story told with meticulous attention to detail, honouring the viewer’s intelligence, while still being generous with the fun. It touches the deep, inquiring parts of the viewer’s soul, while throwing a few bones to our baser instincts, allowing us to delight in a little wanton destruction.
Set in a sleepy suburb in Middlesex, Massachusetts in 1988, the film opens with the teenaged Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) waking up in the morning on an empty highway overlooking a beautiful valley. Donnie sleep-walks and wakes up in strange places, an affliction that proves most fortuitous the next morning when a jet engine falls from the sky above Donnie’s house and crashes through the roof, landing on Donnie’s empty bed- while Donnie wakes up on the local golf course.
Donnie lives with his liberal, upper-middle class parents, his older sister Elizabeth, and his younger sister, Samantha. Real-life siblings Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal play Donnie and Elizabeth, bringing a delightful authenticity to their on-screen relationship. Donnie is seeing a court-ordered psychologist due to past delinquent behaviour, and, as the movie unfolds, it becomes clear that Donnie’s mental condition is much more serious than anyone realises. Donnie sees –and hears– what he describes, rather inadequately, as “a giant bunny rabbit”: his imaginary friend, Frank. Frank is the most grotesque and frightening figure that could possibly be described with the word “bunny”, with a face that vaguely resembles a rabbit’s skull, who continually gives Donnie a running count-down of the days, hours, and minutes left until the world comes to an end; and, in the meantime, provides a series of destructive tasks for Donnie to carry out.
Donnie’s white-bread suburb, with its Christian school and small-minded denizens, is the perfect canvas for Donnie’s acts of filth and vandalism. The New-Age, self-help guru (Patrick Swayze) and his sycophantic fan-girl (Donnie’s insufferable female gym teacher), are the perfect victims of his antisocial behaviour, while his unorthodox, drool-worthy English teacher (Drew Barrymore) and ridiculously supportive and cool parents are the perfect allies. Here, Kelly turns the traditional teenage movie formula on its head: Instead of the emotionally-absent, materialistic, one-dimensional parents that ‘80s films were so fond of, Donnie’s parents are cooler than he is. Yet, still, the angst and the rebellion are there. With no apologies.
Donnie is very much an ordinary teenager. He spends most of his time “thinking about fucking”, is rude to his family, and awkwardly asks a girl if she wants to “go” with him (“that’s what we call it here, “going together”). When not experiencing hallucinations, Donnie debates such deep topics with his friends as whether smurfs have genitals. There are none of the usual witty, acidic lines delivered dead-pan by teenage versions of Oscar Wilde that we have come to expect from teenage comedy. The humorous and realistic documentation of the ordinary in this film feels like Napoleon Dynamite, combined with the opacity and ambiguity of Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and the quirkiness of Jonze’s Being John Malkovich.
Donnie Darko is a film that is stylistically ahead of its time. Young audiences, used to enduring the cheesy and trite offerings of Hollywood in return for a couple of hours of entertainment, won’t know what hit them. It satisfies on every level and demands repeated viewing.