Donnie Darko: When Reality Meets Something Different

Rating: 10/10 (10 July 2005)

Donnie Darko. There are a few movies I can think of that are quite like it.
One can argue that from the opening scene of the movie, when Donnie rides his bike home, and that eerie piano solo comes in, the movie is dripping with an atmosphere just on this side of paranormal.
It has some classic supernatural entities that make it a beautifully creative film. Donnie's hallucinations in the form of Frank for example. How many films have a six foot menacing rabbit with a skull face talking to a teenage boy? There is also the element of time travel which, as the movie unravels, becomes the base of everything that goes wrong, and in the end seems to go right with the sort of bittersweet bite that any teenager can appreciate.
But, outside the realm of the supernatural, is a reality to the film that anyone can relate to. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the epitome of a troubled, confused and lost teen in the character of Donnie. There is family relationships, issues of societal acceptance, and even teenage romance to aide in the reality of the story.
A movie with both reality and then para-normality is a winner in every interest circle. And that is what Donnie Darko is. It touches a person wherever that person likes to be touched and leaves them emotionally and cognitively effected in the end.