This is Frank

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2002)

What I liked best about this film was the way it was so lovingly directed. The camera pans over settings, landscapes, and characters languorously, as if trying to savor every aspect of this tale of a paranoid schizophrenic teenager who may see into other dimensions.
Jake Gyllenhaal (as Donnie Darko) deserves to be lingered over. His performance summons memories of what it was like to be in high school and surrounded by real teenagers, not the fakey teens usually on display in Hollywood movies, even well-intentioned ones. Gyllenhaal's performance is a perfect melange of rage, vulnerability, fear and wonderment, tempered by psychosis. I don't know of many actors who could have pulled this role off as well, creating a character who is definitely mentally ill, yet is also someone the audience might want as a friend.
Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle both give impressive performances. Both are entirely believeable as high-school teachers, a great feat considering that it's hard to get the image of Wyle in a white lab coat (from ER), or Barrymore with bleached-blonde hair lisping babytalk in a "girl road movie", out of one's mind when seeing them these days. Barrymore, especially, takes her energy level down several notches from her norm, portraying a woman without much overt "personality", but with lots going on under the surface. She's still lisping, but now it's merely a speech impediment rather than an attempt at cuteness. Wyle also portrays a rather meek man who issues lots of shy grins, a person of limited heroics who indulges Donnie Darko's interest in time travel as far as he can without putting himself out.
One of the best scenes in the film is a brief one where Barrymore and Wyle's characters sit quietly together. Barrymore just says, "Donnie Darko." After a pause, Wyle laughs. No more is said, and the film goes on to something else. But for that moment, we see through their characters' eyes as much as we see through Donnie Darko's for the rest of the film.