Ambiguity is popular again!

Rating: Null/10 (4 May 2003)

***There are spoilers in this review***
This dark, layered film almost hits the mark, but unfortunately it falls short, leaving too many unanswered questions and unresolved plot lines. We're living through another film renaissance, almost like the 1960s, with films such as Being John Malkovich, L.A. Confidential, American Beauty, and Chicago. Everyone laments the largely pathetic output of today's corporate Hollywood production machine, but these films are among those who prove that high-profile culture isn't dead in America just yet. Donnie Darko might belong among these thoughtful, painstakingly assembled films if only it had more substance.
For some reason, this film is set in 1988, apparently only to include 80s music in the soundtrack like Echo and the Bunnymen (was this a coincidence?). The only 1988 reference in the entire film is the presidential race. So why 1988? By the way, it's always amusing to see the number of ways that time travel, an old Hollywood standby, is incorporated into films. This time it's some nonsense about worm holes.
The film isn't all bad: Frank is one of the most fascinating, layered characters since Dr. Lecter, and watching the unraveling of who he really is is like a mystical journey. Though the idea of Frank as spiritual guide is intriguing, it is an empty gesture. What purpose does it serve to teach someone a life lesson if they're, ahem, ultimately unable to use it?

As beautifully subtle as most of the film is, it is the jarring baseball-bat-to-the-head inferences that bother me the most. Donnie's teacher could not be any more conveniently repressed; any teacher who doesn't know the difference between Lorne Greene and Grahame Greene should be fired. Then later on, the same teacher tells Donnie's mother that she believes she `isn't committed to Sparkle Motion' (the high school dance troupe). I think it's supposed to be a funny vignette, but it's not at home in this movie; John Waters would have more use for it.
No purpose is served by exposing Cunningham. It adds nothing to the story other than that it hints that Frank might be real, and even then it's a stretch; you would think that an omniscient time-traveling one-eyed man would be powerful enough to set the fire himself. And even then, the pessimistic expectation that the entire house would burn down and leave Cunningham's porn collection untouched for the authorities to discover would be just the motivation not to do it and instead simply alert the police. Whatever.
It's easy to see why this film and the Matrix are so popular with young people: they fulfill the aching question about the supposed unseen, influential force that directs peoples' lives. Predestination was always a popular notion in uncertain times, because it meant that everything really wasn't your fault. Since times will be uncertain for years to come, expect to see more of these fanciful films that reduce humanity to cogs in a giant wheel, like Magnolia. I guess it's easier to believe in that than the fact that you make your own decisions and have to live with them. In other words, if you're unhappy, most of the time it's your fault.

There are sites devoted to picking this film apart, endlessly searching for buried symbolism; someone needs to tell these people that if you look hard enough, you'll find what you're looking for. You need to be over thirty to understand that.
On the plus side, the acting is good all around. Drew Barrymore is wonderful as a liberal english teacher, and it is great to see Katharine Ross again. This film is worth watching if you want to see something that breaks out of the mold, even if the effort falls far short of the mark. With more editing, this could have been a great film.