childish, faux-deep and good.

Rating: Null/10 (2 September 2002)

So when I watched Donnie Darko once, I loved it. When I watched it again, I detested it. I initially enjoyed Kelly's elliptical ending, his cute observations of late 80s coming-of-age, his seemingly cryptic but solvable message. I particularly enjoy movies that make you actively decipher a meaning, truth or mystery - metaphysical detective fiction transferred well to celluloid. But viewing number two left me cold and angry. When you look at DD's website or view the DVD, you can easily find the pages of the Philosophy of Time Travel book. When Donnie chooses to go back in time to reset the negative aspects his life has caused, I was hoping for some sort of grander meaning, greater importance, or defter allusion to some existing school of philosophical thought. What Kelly gives us is a manufactured philosophy that he then ties his characters to. I don't know... I feel jipped. There's a difference between Donnie Darko and say, Mulholland Drive, another movie that involves heavy deciphering. MD has a neat payoff for the investment of time and detective work. At the end of Donnie Darko, it's like, who the hell cares? A few more quick beefs: Wyle and Barrymore characters useless. And this doesn't really count, but the DVD's inclusion of the Cunning Visions infomercials with `audio commentary by the director' is just plain snobby. Kelly has a propensity for easy targets: in this case, the low-budget commercial video maker. Ooh, make fun of amateurs - hilarious. Unlike other young writer-directors, such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Kelly seems to want to use satire not to make valuable characterizations, but to show the audience that he is above that sort of behavior. It just seems a little childish and spoils the DVD.