A self-indulgent love letter from the writer/director to himself

Rating: 5/10 (18 September 2019)

A self-indulgent love letter from the writer/director to himself - the "misunderstood genius", or at least he hopes you to think of him that way. The plot isn't convoluted to mask up a thrilling twist or turn in the plot, but rather to cover up the fact that nothing of remote importance happens in this film.
The plot summed up is that a rip in the fabric of time creates an alternate timeline sending a messenger of death to our main character Donnie Darko. The messenger saves him from immediate death, but warns of a coming end. Through the next month, Donnie progressively gets madder and madder as anticipation grows for the end. However, the end is simply a plane being caught in the rip in the fabric of time causing the accident that started this all. Donnie then decides to allow himself to die to avoid all the changes that he made by staying alive in the alternate timeline... Why. Why did any of this matter? I don't know.
Donnie has no affect on the plane, so why was he saved in the first place? Why does the universe care so much about him? Because - like the writer/director - he believes the universe to revolve around him? Or simply so the universe could have some fun messing around with alternate timelines? There's no real reason for any of this to happen - nor any attempt at explaining why dead people from alternate realities communicate to our lead character.
Moving beyond the surface of this convoluted mess, we get to the actual filmmaking which had some great moments mixed with some bad ones as well. The pretentiousness continues as we see Donnie's friends frustratedly ask the writer - I mean lead character - "Why do you have to be so smart?" The hot, young teacher is much the same as she too is brilliant and misunderstood as she recites such beautiful poetry such as "Cellar Door" ... Simply beautiful.
Some acting is good such as Jake Gyllenhaal - no surprise there - and some acting ranges from mediocre at best to downright painful such as Maggie Gyllenhaal and a horribly out of place Seth Rogen.
The overall mood of the movie was very tense and eerie and I really wanted to like this movie which helped it a lot, but at the end of the film I was left confused. Not confused by the plot - no, believe it or not I managed to follow this brilliantly clever masterpiece - but rather confused by why this film is held in such high regard by critics and fans alike. Maybe because everyone is too "fearful" to admit that they just don't get it. I, however, am not afraid to.
5/10