Donnie Darko Review

Rating: 8/10 (22 October 2018)

(This is a review of the Director's Cut)
Donnie Darko really surprised me. As much as I was resistant to watch, it kept pulling me back in and had me both mesmerized and terrified. It was the kind of psychological thriller that appeals to me. However, this is about where the positives stop for me. I felt dropped into the storyline like being thrown into the deep end of the pool. I feel that this was intentional but also hurt my view of the story. I understand that it was intentional because we needed to be completely involved in what was happening in the story right away. However, this left me with more questions than answers.
In addition, the ending did not sit well with me. I admit that I am a little biased because I do not always like having open ended conclusions to films. However, the fact remains that there were unanswered portions of the film. While I understood that we were going "back in time" to the beginning of the film, it was not clear to me if everything we had just seen was supposed to be an alternate reality. I am not sure if the ending was supposed to tell us that even if Donnie had survived the plane engine crashing into his room then people would have still gotten hurt.
Overall, I am happy that I was able to see this movie. I felt like I was taken on a rollercoaster through the twists and turns of the film. However, I hope to not see anything resembling a 6 foot tall scary bunny rabbit named Frank anytime in the near future!