Elwood's Bad Dream

Movie Review:
Donnie Darko

R / 1 hr., 54 min. / 2001

Donnie Darko is one of those movies that is fascinating to watch until about the last ten minutes. Then it becomes incomprehensible. In this, it is not unlike Mulholland Dr., which I rented on the same weekend to kill some time while my wife was recovering from the medical procedures used to deliver our first child. Although Donnie Darko was much more coherent than Mulholland Dr., overall I think I wasted my weekend. I would venture to say my wife had more fun sitting in her hospital bed for hours staring at our boy asleep in her arms.

Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) appears to be a normal teenager attending some kind of prep or parochial school. He has a respectable home, with reasonable parents (Holmes Osborne and Mary McDonnell), even if he doesn’t always get along with his sister (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jake’s real sister).

But something is clearly wrong with Donnie. He is morose, withdrawn. And he has recurring visions of a grotesque grey figure named Frank that visits him at night and gives him instructions for committing random acts of violence. Who or what Frank is is uncertain, but “he” wears a rabbit costume that is – well, to say it is merely unsettling is like saying Satan is merely bad. It is a rabbit to be found only in nightmares – sort of a deranged Harvey.

Donnie owes it to Frank to follow his violent instructions since Frank saves his life early in the film by telling him to leave his house. Shortly after Donnie steps off his property, an airplane engine crashes through the Darko house roof straight through Donnie’s bedroom – which leads to Frank’s other talent: Foretelling the future. He has predicted the end of the world on the day before Halloween, and all of the violent assignments Frank gives to Donnie are part of – well, I’m not quite sure; either Donnie is helping bring Frank’s dire prediction to a successful fulfillment, or helping Frank stave off the world’s undesirable doom. I was a little foggy on that point.

Donnie is in a fog as well, apparently. He spends a great deal of time in the movie looking into the concept of time travel, for reasons I appear to have missed. Perhaps he wants to know how Frank knows so much. Donnie even experiences limited prophetic abilities himself, able to foresee a few seconds into the future. How this is portrayed is interesting and a bit unsettling in its visuals.

Despite a certain sense of meandering that I was afraid would sabotage my interest, things do seem to head somewhere. Donnie learns about the hypothesis of time travel through wormholes (a word so popular in science fiction these days that I wish Stephen Hawking had never coined it), and discovers that the crazy old lady on the mountain road is the one who wrote the book on the subject. Frank himself, or at least his name, begins turning up in unlikely places, causing Donnie to be on edge constantly. And all of Donnie’s assignments from Frank result, strangely, in good being accomplished, despite the fact that Donnie may be committing flagrant crimes.

But then, we are never really sure that Donnie is actually committing the crimes. Is he dreaming? Is Frank simply telling him that someone is doing these things as a way of proving his prophetic abilities? It’s creatively vague, and I’m not going to tell.

Then there is a sudden tragedy that I cannot reveal, but which seems to have been caused by Frank himself. And it is at this point, the last ten minutes of the film, that the plot swerves into the realm of the unexplainable. It’s not that Donnie Darko is a bad movie; it’s just that the ending renders everything we’ve seen befuddling.

What happens works within the rules the film’s unity has set up, but it fails to explain everything that has gone before and, more frustratingly, it does not explain why any of it happened. Frank has been guiding Donnie – but to what conclusion? What would have happened if Frank had not given Donnie these assignments? Or if Donnie had refused to go along? I can deal with the inconsistencies and impossibilities of time travel theory as long as they are presented in an engaging way (and the film succeeds here), but I have a hard time with a film that fails to answer its own “So What?” If I do not understand or care about the main character’s final fate or condition, or do not at least learn something from what he’s gone through, why did I watch?

Amazingly, the director’s own commentary on the DVD does not help answer the question. Richard Kelly explains the whole movie, and at the same time fails to actually explain it. Though I have not seen the later Director’s Cut, Roger Ebert testifies that it is largely as bewildering as the original.

This problem of resolution should never happen, even in the worst movies; but it is particularly painful here, where the movie is successfully absorbing. This is Richard Kelly’s third writing and directing endeavor, and he does a good job, especially considering he’s a year younger than me and is doing the very thing I want to do: Directing films. Kelly knows what he’s doing as a director, but this script reveals he needs to step outside for a minute and try to read it as an unsuspecting audience member.

Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky) is an excellent choice as Donnie. He looks and behaves like he is either constantly on drugs, or just really depressed by the inanities of the world, both of which are true for Donnie. And when Frank puts him up to his assignments, Gyllenhaal has a wonderful sardonic smile that suggests mischievous machinations. Gyllenhaal’s ability to be an Every-Teen makes it clear why Sam Raimi was considering him to replace an injured Toby Maguire in the Spider-Man franchise.

The supporting cast fill out their undemanding roles well. Most notable is Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing) as a disgustingly glossy self-esteem guru whose curriculum for health classes boils all of life’s decisions down to “Love or Fear.” Donnie correctly challenges him on this during an open-mic seminar; and although one cannot root completely for Donnie’s life attitudes, here was a moment I was on his side. Swayze’s excellent portrayal has so much sugar on it that diabetics will be rushing for their medication.

For fun, keep an eye out for scattered cameos from both seasoned performers like Katharine Ross (The Stepford Wives) and Drew Barrymore (Ever After), and actors like Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) whose career had yet to begin at the time.

Ultimately, everyone involved does his job well. The film is competently constructed, ably performed, and intriguingly presented. It tells its story well, and will no doubt commend Kelly to producers in the future. So it really is a shame that we end up with no clue why we sat and watched it.

My Score: 7