Overrated...

Rating: 2/10 (22 August 2003)

*Warning: Possible SPOILERS....*

Poor Donnie. His family just doesn't understand him. His classmates think he's weird. And evidently, his world is coming to an end. Now, if Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) were an existentialist, he may have spent more time pondering the strange goings-on that directly affected his life. Instead, he conceals himself, wrapped in a pity me, I'm adorable brood, and talks to a six-foot tall bunny named Frank. Frank, it seems, isn't a bad fella - he leads Donnie away from his home one night - one in a series of sleepwalking adventures - only to return and find that a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. Now, here comes the existentialism...well, sort of.
His life is saved...for the time being. Frank informs Donnie that he has 28 days to live (it seems that fate has been fudged a bit, allowing Donnie to live in a tangent universe, a sort of "what if?" reality where he can break free of his quiet nowhere-man life and be a hero - of sorts), the "World" is going to end (more ponderous pseudo-philosophizing), and Donnie now had free creative license to wreak havoc wherever he wishes.
His victims - the society that shunned him, the family that ignored him, Patrick Swayze - all take notice of the quiet little boy from Middlesex, Iowa...and realize this kid is just plain screwy. As his lashings-out increase, Donnie becomes more disturbed, and little bunny Frank becomes more fuzzy.
Richard Kelly, the writer-director of Donnie Darko, must have had some wild, long nights in college, where he no doubt took philosophy...and got a D+. His disjointed script is directed with a smoothness, a gritty, neo-noir flair that is visually stunning, but carries a lackadaisical serendipity, and the story lags in mis-matched sub-plots, and tragic little ironies that concern a young man we learn very little of, and find that we don't care if his "World" ends at all, existentialism be darned.
Jake Gyllenhaal, an indie-brat extraordinaire, carries on a false sense of bravado; his character Donnie is a tool, a pawn used by Frank's king to lash out on an undeserving world simply because Frank and Donnie both are kindred spirits - both of their lives were cut short by freak accidents - and if they have to suffer, we all shall suffer. And we do. In spades. Gyllenhaal mumbles and broods his way to the end, and into a neurotic romance with Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone), who finds herself attracted to the unshelled Donnie, and joins him in the havoc.
In the two years that have followed since its initial release, "Donnie Darko" has earned a cult following, an undeserving one at that. It seems that if you make a movie featuring a despondent young man and have the film make very little sense to the few who are aware of symbolism and make no sense at all to the many who marveled at Donnie when he told that guy from "Dirty Dancing" that he is the "anti-christ", then you have cult-indie gold. Well, so be it. As long as Drew Barrymore shows up, it can't be all bad, right? Right...