It will make you laugh, cry, and give you nightmares

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 2002)

When I first heard of Donnie Darko, I was intrigued by the demonic bunny rabbit. I was watching the indie spirit awards on IFC and I saw that it was nominated for a couple things, including best actor, Jake Gyllenhaal, so I decided to check it out. Lets just say my first reaction was wow.
The story is about a teenage boy, haunted by a daylight hallucination. A demonic bunny rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world will end on October 30, 1988. He is driven to do things he wouldn't normally do, like flood his school or burn down a "Love yourself" guru played by Patrick Swayze. Not normally a role you would see him in. Throughout the story we meet the girl (Jenna Malone) Donnie falls in teenage adolescent love with, "Grandma Death" a woman who wrote a book called the Philosophy of Time Travel, An English teacher (Drew Barrymore) trying to get through to her troubled students, a chemistry teacher (Noah Wyle) who tries his best to explain time travel to Donnie without getting fired, and best of all, Frank, who we aren't really sure actually was a person of just a figment of Donnie's imagination. There is a point where they are sitting in a movie theatre and Donnie asks, "Why are you wearing that stupid bunnysuit?" His chilling reply is " Why are you wearing that stupid mansuit?" Donnie then says "Take it off." And we see a boy with a ruined eye. It makes us think. Why do we wear "Mansuits?" The diologue fits well in it's minimal amount, and the scenes with no diologue are even better. Actor Jake Gyllenhaal transforms his character magnificently, changing his voice from normal when he is awake, to scared childlike when he is hypnotized or talking to Frank. Jena Malone strives to meet his character, but doesn't quite get there. But then she isn't in it enough to make much of a difference. The conservative parents voting for Bush and Donnie's sister voting for Dukakis represent a tension between generations, and simple messages written on the white board on the fridge ("Where's Donnie?" or "Vote Dukakis") leave us wondering, "what was that for?" Director Richard Kelly wrote this as a teenager and as a teenager myself, it is inspiring to learn that we can create beautiful works that traumatize the mind and relate to our lives and experiences. I recommend this movie to anyone with an open mind, or wanting to confuse the hell out of themselves.