Films This Deep Need SOME Explanation, But This One Provides Nothing

Rating: 5/10 (5 March 2017)

I am an avid film-watcher, especially ones with mind-bending material such as this one, but I can honestly say that I've never had a stranger experience watching a movie than "Donnie Darko".
For a basic plot summary, a teen named Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) who may or may not be just a tad emotionally unstable begins seeing a vision at night of a giant bunny. When said bunny saves him from certain peril one night, it sets in motion a chain of events that present Donnie with a serious of decisions he must make. To say any more would be to starting leaking spoilers.
I'll start with the positives here: Despite the fact that the film gives away absolutely nothing (like a never-ending card game where the hands are never shown), it was still an enjoyable experience. The characters are interesting, the plot is intriguing, and even though I never quite knew exactly what was going on, I never felt like I was wasting time. It always seemed as if forward progress was still being attained.
That being said, I can't give this movie the full five-star treatment like so many others. Why? Because I believe any movie has to have some sort of "base" (or some answers given), and this film just refuses to provide them. It's like being asked to decipher a code without being given any sort of "key". Maybe I'm missing something big here, but until I finished the movie and went online in search of answers I was utterly clueless as to what the heck I just witnessed. Those online "answers" that I found, however, didn't seem to have shown up in the actual movie itself (or very slightly). SPOILER ALERT: It all seems to be related to the "book", but yet the book only shows up in flashes in the movie. Only in promotional materials does the book seem to be explained, giving us the "key" to understanding at least a little bit.
Of course, it is always possible that I just "don't get it". But until I do, this is an oddly middling effort for me. More frustrating than anything, as I was totally engaged until the end when I was severely let down by the esoteric nature of the experience.