Apr 28 2006
Time travel is possible, if you’re a brooding teen or an ex-ball player
Last night I sat on my couch and watched the director’s cut of Donnie Darko. It’s… well…um…okay, I guess.
It’s the type of movie that had I seen it five years ago when it was released, I may have said it was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. But now that I’m older, I can appreciate Teen Angst/the-world-doesn’t-understand, but no longer relate to it. I guess I really am old.
If you haven’t seen Donnie Darko, this is Richard Kelly’s directorial debut film about a teenager, Donnie, who is visited be six-foot, demonic-looking rabbit in his sleep. This rabbit tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days. It may sound stupid, but it gets more interesting: the plot also revolves around the ideas of time travel and tangent universes.
Yes, a time-travelling six-foot rabbit from a tangent universe sounds like the stuff that classic cult movie are carved from, which is exactly where this movie will end up (it may be there already). It has a lot of interesting ideas but fails to pull them together in the end. Did Donnie travel back in time? Did he go through a worm hole? Was he in a tangent universe for the entire movie? I think the director meant it to be open-ended, but it’s a little too open for me.
I read an article on wikipedia about Donnie Darko that has the best explanation of the plot; it explains why Donnie can travel to the fourth dimension and the significance of certain artifacts and people in the movie. It’s the best one I found on the net for this movie.
But for all the talk about this movie being about time-travel and tangent universes, I’m pretty sure that Donnie’s ultimate goal is not to figure out why he keeps seeing this strange rabbit or how he travels through time, rather he’s just trying to get laid before the world ends in 28 days (which is where the teen angst/frustration comes in).
Also, through the last half of the movie I’m thinking to myself ‘Donnie Darko, DD. He can travel through and talks to rabbits. Darren Daulton, DD. The ex-baseball player says he can travel through time and talks to lizards.’
Many believe the movie warrants a second viewing because it’s too complex to understand the first time around, they’re probably right. And while this movie does have it’s good points- excellent performances by Jake Gyllenhaal as the brooding Donnie, Patrick Swayze as motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, and a great soundtrack that includes INXS, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Joy Division- the story was just not interesting enough for me to warrant sitting through it again.
image from pixelsurgeon.com
[tags]Donnie Darko, Darren Daulton, Movies, Time-Travel[/tags]
Hey Carter, I loved the movie. I saw the director’s cut when it was released in the theater. Maybe it’s just one of those things you need to see on the big screen. Your forgot The Church were on the soundtrack, too.
Dave-
It’s possible that had I seen this movie in another environment I would have liked it more, but what I wondering is would I have liked the original more than the director’s cut? I’ve read some reviews of the director’s cut that think the movie is too loose with the extra footage.
And how did I forget Under the Milky Way by The Church. Great Song, great soundtrack.