Caution: Spoilers ahead!

Rating: 4/10 (19 March 2003)

The main problem with Donnie Darko, is that the basic plot structure has by now become trite. I can list a number of movies, starting from the most recent, that use this particular `surprise ending.' There's Shamalayan's `Sixth Sense' and Polanski's `A Pure Formality,' as well as the relatively unknown `Final Approach,' and no doubt a host of others where the whole movie takes place because its protagonist is really already dead. (The grandaddy of this genre may well be the award-winning sixties short film, "Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge.")
The use of this tired plot device is a fault in itself; but there is a big plot hole as well. It seems the anomalous falling jet engine that misses/kills our hero was supposed to be from the future, from a plane his mother and sister are on. Yet in the wrap-up, the whole family turns out to be in the house, and not on the plane after all.
There is an attempt to evade this plot hole but positing that, by some goofy, sci-fi, time-travel sleight-of-hand, we are dealing, not with a post-death experience, but with an alternate universe in which Donnie has: A) survived in order to prevent the alt.real. from occurring; or B) has caused it by not dying. In any case, the fix is to go back in time and die and make it all better. This may sound original, but it is really just `It's A Wonderful Life' stood on its head.
Other well-chewed bits include the reliance on the old horror motif of `the kids at a Halloween party', which becomes and excuse to create rather easy images and metaphors of confused-identity. Worst of all, the film has a miscellaneous sort of sound track which often obscures the dialogue.
Having said all that negative stuff, let me add that the film (without the trick this-explains-it-all ending) is not a chore to watch, though the pacing is uneven. Better still, along the way there is some very nice film making: fine acting (I loved Donnie's mom); some good shooting (though nothing as wonderful as the Lynch-like opening shot); and quite a bit of witty political and social satire, as well as some relatively sensitive philosophical musing and characters you care about. Plus, there is plenty of tongue-in-cheek references to other films--not the least of which, is of course, the nod to `Harvey,' the only other film I know of with a giant invisible rabbit driving the plot.

I hope Director Richard Kelly gets another shot at making a film, because he's got style. But I fear that we can get a good idea of where Kelly might actually be going if we look at his contemporary, M. Shamalayan. I'm not sure that a good eye, a bit of wit, a warm heart, and a surprise ending are enough to build a career on. `Sixth Sense' was both moving and kind of cool. But `Unbreakable' was a limper attempt at a similar sort of thing, and `Signs' was a flat-out embarrassing serving of less of more-of-the-same. I hope Shamalayan has discovered that long, tense, moody shots, full of spooky ambiguity can do a lot in the hands of someone like David Lynch. But a director had better have the artistic and intellectual cojones to back it up, or he's going to look silly.