extraordinary film, supported by a great cast, mixing fantastic elements with familiar ones of everyday life

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2004)

Minor spoilers herein.
Donnie Darko became an instant cult classic when it went out on 2001. Not only because of the fantastic or science-fiction elements in it. The mysterious and strangeness that pervades the whole film, stems from the insertion of fantastic elements troubling suddenly the daily life of a typical American suburbs and especially (only ?) the hero, Donnnie Darko.
Donnie Darko is a high school student in a private institution, plagued by somnambulism, and visions of a giant fearsome, devilish, rabbit who dictates him to commit violent and seemly destructive actions. Even before seeing the rabbit, he must attend sessions with a psychotherapist because of violent past acts. Thanks to the rabbit, he escapes being crushed during its sleep by a huge reactor falling from nowhere. From this start, doom is looming, threatening the world. In effect, the film is set in the end of the eighties, at the end of the Reagan Era, before the election of Georges Bush. So the world we know as a spectator has not ended. The mystery is installed we feel of the impending doom must be thwarted in some ways or else. Like great fantastic films we never know if all is real or a great part the product of the mind of the main character, Donnie Darko. Is all not a dream of a sleeping young boy before the crash of the reactor. Nearly all are not hallucinations from the pills he is obliged to take? We'll know at the end.
The real force of the film is in the successful mixing of different disparate elements:

Psychology suspense. Donnie Darko is real a troubled teenager, trying to find a place in an adult and largely inept world to his eyes. But the family and its parents are not ridiculous, only mildly Republican. They are not portrayed as bigot or stupid or insensitive. His sister (played by the beautiful and talented Maggie Gyllenhaal, the real life sister of Jake playing Donnie Darko) is not necessarily his enemy, though they are fighting verbally at times.

Social satire. Swayse plays skillfully a positive action guru which has the support of the school hierarchy. The simplistic solutions he wants to impose are cleverly denounced publicly by a rebel Donnie Darko.

Science-fiction through a possible tale of time traveling and parallel universes. The film plays with time paradoxes which are central to the structure of the film. This element succeeds in being exposed in a not ridiculous fashion is the source of the success of the film. In fact it helps creating an atmosphere of unreality and danger throughout the film.

An '80 evocation and near nostalgia (mainly through the soundtracks: for example the Killing Moon of the Echo and Bunny Men at the start the film, the party)

Teen and college coming of age movies through the love affair wit the newcomer girl.

A special mention for the excellent supporting cast, especially Drew Barry More and Noah Wyle, as high school teachers out place in the ridiculous narrow minded private high school.