In cinema oddity, there are always three auteurs on the list: Lynch, Burton and Gilliam. Fledgling filmmaker Richard Kelly launched this indie flick five years ago and seemed to have threatened these weirdo wonders and made it up recently to the bizarre-movies-of-all-time list. It’s a mysterious feat as DONNIE DARKO also seemed to have captured psychos, brainiacs, and teenage angst alike, making misunderstood individuals become – well, understood – but it’s this unique piece of cinema that makes an impact, not its muddled oftentimes convoluted plot.DONNIE DARKO is a story of a teenager who suffers somnambulism (sleepwalking) and illusions of creepy bunny-mascot killer telling him that the world is going apocalyptic in 28 days. The start of the film is like an attestation that widescreen shots deliver Richard Kelly having a good eye for screens, and as Donnie (a peculiarly appropriate and gratifying performance by Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up finding himself on a road with his bike, we see a very good string of shots here, and it’s just the beginning.


One of his sleepwalking episodes saved him from being crashed by a jet engine that falls into his bedroom, and he became a local celebrity in his school. Let’s look at the dark side of adolescence, Donnie would have loved to say this, as more mystical visions occur; school started flooding, English teacher (Drew Barrymore, who also co-produced this) began teaching Graham Greene’s youngster anarchists, an unusual love story with new student in town Gretchen (Jena Malone) who felt as though she was attracted to Donnie’s subversive weirdness, Donnie’s chance to time travel using Grandma Death’s old physics book, elongated bubbles coming out of people’s bodies, and more to the killer bunny plot – all of these, mixed together in a narrative jumble.


I can’t help to say this but DONNIE DARKO is that kind of film that shares both light and shade. We could recognise a good piece of craft in a film as easy as determining a healthy apple from a rotten one and this piece isn’t a rotten apple as it’s absolutely a fresh take on cinema. It would remind us how David Lynch would have operated when he was still young and new to the business. Richard Kelly shows the same aura.


While nevertheless flawed, this film suffers from the strength of coherence. I wouldn’t wonder if some people would look apeshits as though they have just been into an incomprehensible, unsolvable Physics or Mathematics test after coming out of this film, because I admit, I was rattling my brain cells together if they were all actually functioning.


Anyhow, DONNIE DARKO, while enjoyed by some, will confound many. It’s not a film for everyone. If you happen to like science fiction mixed with high-school copiousness slash strange love story slash heavy magnetic thriller atmosphere, then you are in the right dark alley. Watch out for some appreciable performance by Jake Gyllenhaal as the eponymous hero. The intensity of the development of the plot was highly interesting and it snakes into a labyrinthine twist yet somehow concluded in an offbeat ending. This Donnie is indeed dark.



RATING: B-