A dreamy, intriguing and paradoxical story

Rating: 8/10 (3 July 2008)

An intriguing, paradoxical and dreamlike movie about...well, that's the question. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie Darko, a teenage boy who, one day, has a jet-engine drop onto his bed, seemingly from nowhere. We learn some things about Donnie...he is on medication...he sees weird things. Maybe the things he sees are the result of his medical condition, or the drugs he takes for it...or, what happens in the movie is real...could involve time travel and alternate planet Earths. The entire movie plays like a dream-which is to say it is dreamy. Some of it is a bit creepy and disturbing...so, this isn't really a movie for the kiddies.
The main 'hook' of the movie is a countdown to some impending catastrophe which Donnie is trying to avert...every now and again text on the screen alerts us to the time remaining until something horrible will happen.
Hopefully this description isn't too off-putting. There is humour in this movie and it is very poignant towards the end. I said before that the movie was paradoxical...which is to say that any movie dealing in this sort of subject matter will bang up against the same kind of wall. However, for me at least, I didn't let the paradoxes get in the way of appreciating this story. It probably doesn't really make sense, but you know what is being attempted and you are happy to play along with it. In any case, the movie does tie up neatly (sort of!) the issues it has been dealing with.
Can't omit a truly wonderful sequence in this movie...when I saw this movie for the first time on SBS TV a couple of years ago, I think, I was reminded of what an all time classic song "Head over heels" by Tears For Fears was. That is one of the great 'pure' pop songs of all time. It is featured in this movie...brilliantly. The sequence is dreamy and a bit like a music video. Can't tell you how aesthetically pleasing it is (presumably it works better the more you like the song though!).
Seth Rogen cameos in this film-his debut? Check out "12 monkeys" if you like this kind of territory. It too is dreamy.