No ordinary film

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2003)

I'm not given to exaggeration, but I have to say that this is all-round the best film I've ever seen. Sure, there are other films that are great (The Star Wars films for instance) but no film has had the emotional and intellectual effect on me that this one has. I have never seen a film and still been thinking about it ten days later.
The film has a very different feel to any other I've seen. Its time travel theme does mean it has elements of sf - however, to pigeonhole it into one of these narrow categories is to do it a disservice. One suspects that the reason it didn't do so well commercially is that nobody knew what to market it as.
This film will leave you with many questions. The information garnered from "The Philosophy of Time Travel" extracts on the DVD/website will help with a few, but some will probably never be answered. That is one of the things which makes this film great.
The casting is very good. Richard Kelly was wise to pick mainly relative unknowns in the three main roles of Donnie, Gretchen and Frank as the presence of big names would have overshadowed the film.
The overall look of the film is great, with some memorable scenes (e.g Donnie, Gretchen and Frank in the cinema, "They made me do it" sprayed on the ground in front of the school) and the choice of music is pretty good (such as Echo and the Bunnymen (appropriate given what Frank is)), but then most of the artists are British so I'm probably biased.
This is not just a film you watch, it is a film you feel.
10/10!