28:06:42:12

Rating: 10/10 (23 January 2006)

First of all, I desperately wanted to watch this movie not only after reading the reviews, but especially because I am a "gyllenhaalic", Jake's fan. As soon as I bought the movie on DVD I watched it over and over again.
An excellent story...a great cast...a work of art! This movie isn't a commercial one, with -lets say, ordinary subjects-, almost same action, same plot, predictable ending... It isn't for people that prefer common stories, because they certainly won't like it, in case they "take this risk", of making an exception and choosing this movie for the disadvantage of other hundreds. It is worth it only for those who are willing to try something else, something new, maybe something beyond their expectations. Don't be so skeptical, don't underestimate this movie. Watch it without trying to predict a climax, a "better-suited ending". It's impossible. You will be astonished! It can't be described, not within a common way. After you see it, at last, you will definitely have to watch it once more. Every single time it touches you in a unique way. You react as if it were the first time you watch it...You discover different possible explanations, you rediscover every gesture, every line resounds in your head like an echo, trying to find out, subconsciously, what it really meant to say, to express, to demonstrate.
Jake's schizophrenic role in the cult-movie "Donnie Darko", a visionary teen movie about suburban alienation and time travel... Donnie isn't an average teenage boy, with the characteristic problems of the age in question. He is a troubled young boy that is saved from death by a six-foot-tall bunny rabbit, named Frank. This imaginary friend of his (or maybe a messenger of God)tells him that the world is coming to an end in about a month. Donnie doesn't put in question his mental sanity -although his life was "sustained" by pills and therapist (psychiatrist) support- but he only lets himself being guided by this overwhelming state and by his so-called friend, "defender", "boss" and "adviser", Frank. Instead, reason is the one that makes his mind blurry and makes him doubt about his capacity of choosing right from wrong. It also makes the audience wonder what is really going on, which one of the actions takes place in real life, in Donnie's imagination, after traveling through time within God's set path...
All the other characters are not that developed as unique individuals, thus the main one is emphasized, but they help to create the plot, contributing with their own story...They are starring in their own more or less important problem/tragedy, becoming famous for events they didn't want to be part of. "I guess some people are just born with tragedy in their lives." Donnie's inside fight between right and wrong, good and evil, reason and insanity, solitude, and the guilt that torments him, they all end within 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. He doesn't want to be all alone, to die alone..these aspects scare him, because he succumbs to the path of fear after knowing the moment when the world was coming to an end. And he felt -and he actually was- useless, because he couldn't change his destiny, he could only know it, see it and accept his death..
The last song from the movie, the one while certain moments of the characters' existence are slide-showed -in the same time Donnie dies-, describes with details their statements, not only at that moment in time and space -past, future or present-, their emotions, their precious memories of their simple, pitiful, insignificant, boring, common and casual lives that get complicated because of their recent brush with mass-destruction...
"They just want to know what happens when they tear the world apart."...