I imagined it better

Rating: 5/10 (16 February 2006)

Donnie Darko is a balanced scales of good and bad sides of a "cult movie".
Richard Kelly, is a very young director that created (written and directed) a movie with a low budget and an interesting plot, so interesting that the film goes on and nothing happens, nothing involving happens, 'till the end where the great draw is disclosed.
Kelly settled the story in October 1988. For the entire film I wondered WHY ? Is a simple Amarcord (as we were...) or it's a piece of the final puzzle ? Nothing. It should have been settled in 1938, in 1967 or in 1999 and nothing should've changed. Why ? Mystery !!
The actors. Drew Barrymore and Jake Gyllenhaal (even Maggie) c'mon, aren't at all good actors !! Especially in 2001, when the Gyllenhaal brothers were pratically beginners. And, both actors are out of their role. Barrymore is too young even to play the role of a young teacher and Gyllenhaal is too "old" to play a teenager.
I enjoyed the soundtrack, with a lot of my childhood hits of Tears for Fears, Duran Duran and Joy Division, and the piano-cover of Mad World by T.F.F. and some supporting actresses like the psychologist or the bigot teacher.
Anyway I liked it, the two hours went by lightly - The countdown to the end of the world electrifies the spectators, but the end is down by the expectations. It's pretty good, but doesn't deserve to be in the top 100. This movie has the value to have launched the brothers Gyllenhaal and to be re-born like the Phoenix from the ashes (initially ignored, now a cult-movie).
Donnie Darko hasn't the merit to be a "forerunner movie", it's clever and nothing more.