cryptic, deranged, incredible.

Rating: 9/10 (19 October 2019)

-small spoiler alert-
Donnie Darko. An oracular film about a boy who sleepwalks out of his house one night, only to find a giant bunny named Frank who discloses a prophecy to him; The world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds, and it's up to Donnie to figure out why and how. Throughout the movie, Donnie questions everything he knows about reality and life itself, attempting to comprehend his situation.
Having only seen the Theatrical version, I was excited to see a different rendition of a film I hold close to my heart. But sadly, I was slightly disappointed. Although they are sometimes necessary to add clarity, using the pages to explain the plot ruined the mystery of the story. In the Theatrical version, the story and its plot holes are up to your interpretation. You get to figure out what's happening, rather than be told straight up what's going on. You can theorize and contemplate all the possible endings, reasons and ideas.
While in the Director's cut, they have many scenes of the pages from the book, which explains everything candidly. It's like you're being spoon fed the answers, and you finish the movie satisfied, which ruins the point of making the details so minuscule and deceptive. You don't have to dig or search for justification, because it's already there.
Some added scenes were important and helped explain certain details, like the Watership Down scene. But most of the scenes that weren't involved with the Theatrical Version that were added felt unnecessary. They didn't evolve or affect the plot in anyway, like the Café scene with Donnie's parents. They weren't important and felt like time fillers. Similarly, the scenes with Donnie's eye and the computer background effects were irrelevant and weren't essential.
Don't get me wrong, I love this film. The amount of thinking that is needed to comprehend the story and the emotional range in incredible. Jake Gyllenhall does an amazing job at capturing Donnie's eerie and possessed, yet sensitive persona. It is unfathomable that this is had such a low budget and that this is Richard Kelly's first project as a director and writer. Despite this, I still believe that the Theatrical Version was better than the Director's Cut because it left more inquiries in your mind and the suspense makes it more memorable.