Whacky and weird... hence great!

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2007)

Donnie Darko defies all laws of our regular universe (much like time travel?!). I think that the beauty the film, like any good piece of art lies in the fact that there isn't any 1 comprehensive interpretation of it. Yet, at the same time, I'd like to give my own. After reading some if the other reviews, I'd didn't quite agree with some of the stuff that was written. At one level, I think the movie understood as a critique of and rebellion against our narrow-minded (the school.. embodied in the 'fear and love' teacher) view of life (and this is where Drew Barrymore's character comes in). There's the 2 boys, who jump Donnie and his girlfriend, with knives in the end who fit the totally useless, wasted and disturbed archetype. But Donnie is not like them although he falls into many of the aforementioned categories. He's intelligent and yet can't cope with life, but for precisely that reason (he sees through all the facade's and bullshit that life has to offer - Cunningham). And that's where his schizophrenia comes from (I'm not talking medically but metaphorically). Now to come to the question that's on everyone's mind at the end of the film... If he dies at the end, then what is the whole film about? Is it a dream, hallucination..? But if he's dead then who's hallucinating and if he hallucinated all this before his death then isn't that a bit weird? I think the the film is supposed to through up these contradictory questions to make us break out of our 'conservative' views, confined to logic, rationality..... I don't think this is a Chrisopher Nolan type film in which you're supposed to try and tie up everything in the film in light of the end. It's not a 'jigsaw puzzle film'. Maybe the director just wanted to have some fun with the narrative and purposely added an illogical twist in the end...? The point is that, the questions here maybe more important than the answers... Now maybe I'm reading too much into the film but I feel this interpretation adds a very different flavour to the film. But however you may interpret the film, one has to agree that the camera work was amazing. As was the script and most importantly, the wide variety of characters. I haven't really thought about the film in very great detail so there are many important features that I must left out here. A film that should be seen twice (though i haven't yet) and most definitely, at least once!