Fear of Responsibility

Rating: 6/10 (12 January 2014)

I remember the first eight hour shifts I pulled at my first real job in a hospital kitchen. I was 16. The stark reality of the monotony, the adult supervision, and the volume of the workload blew me away. "So this is what life is like for adults," I thought to myself. There was no fun or entertainment involved, and when I finally finished, the only thing I had to look forward to, was doing the same shift again the next day.
When you're a teen, you watch the world of responsibility that your parents and teachers inhabit and it scares you to death. So you take a stance of rebellion and consider them suckers and hypocrites. They have lost their passion. They don't know what real life is about.
But you do. You're not sure what it is, but it isn't work and bills. You are on the inside of some kind of cosmic truth. You feel things deeply. The world is mysterious, threatening, twisted, and potentially enchanting.
Donnie Darko is afraid of the world. He has stared into the future and it terrifies him. The life lived by his parents and teachers is a window onto a nightmare. Add to that mixture an older sister who takes life with a grain of salt and is heading to Harvard for a load of responsibility.She mocks his melodramatic spaciness and his dependency on psychotropic drugs. He's a freak and she is normal, and he knows it.
Having said all that, I remember being spooked by reality like Donnie. I liked the way the film has him sleepwalking and waking up on a mountain road. I lived near an area like that, and I can almost picture myself doing something like that. That was an awesome opening.
I'm not sure why this film was set in 1988, but I read that the writer was 13 at that time. I guess he is hearkening back to the beginning of his own teenage journey. The injection of 80's music fit well. Another reviewer felt that grunge would have been better, and that the film should have been set during that era. But I liked the contrast of a dark character in a still bright and optimistic period. Nice use of the song Mad World at the end.
Since most viewers themselves do not know what the movie was officially about, I wonder if the actors were told. Either way, Jake Gyllenhaal was impressive as the tortured teen. I think he escaped potential clichés and made it his own original work. The rest of the performances were forgettable.
I find Virginia beautiful,which is where DD was set, but this one was actually filmed in Santa Clarita, California. It looked great.The mountains and the suburbs were lovely.
I choose to see the old lady as a scary depiction of another thing that Donnie and teens like him fear. That is aging and death.
Interestingly Katherine Ross came out of obscurity and showed up as the psychiatrist. She was the love interest of the original alienated young man in "The Graduate" from the 1960's. She also played the lead role in the terrifying original Sci-Fi "The Stepford Wives" in the 70's.
The actor who played DD's dad looked just like the guy who played Katherine Ross's dad in The Graduate.
In the midst of all his confusion, he's still a teenage boy.He needs a girlfriend for both supportive companionship and to temper the relentless assault of the male libido. So they threw in a love interest for him to bounce off. It seemed like he was more into his own problems than hers. Although given the ending, he must have cared more than he showed.
I don't want Donnie's character to be considered a hero by new teens discovering this film. He's not.He's a self-absorbed, irresponsible, and sometimes cruel individual.
Just for the record, I grew up in a suburb like the one in DD, and there were loads of wonderful hard working adults and conscientious kids. People did volunteer work, went to church, studied music, built things in their garages and respected their siblings. This is contrary to the suburban life depicted in American Beauty and Donnie Darko.
I see the bunny and the plane engine as hallucinations that stem from a combination of his immense fear of both life and death, and his use of anti-depressants. Time travel is attractive to someone who can't deal with the reality of their present time. If only I could go back in time or forward, I could find the world in a better condition, or escape my own reality.
There is great danger in young people indulging in pop culture that depicts life as pointless,doomed,and unfair. It often breeds a nihilistic malaise that can last for years and affect one's maturity.
This is your wake up call: Like Jackson Browne so poignantly noted in his famous song The Pretender, you do what you have to do, and then you "get up and do it again." Our suburban parents, neighbors, and teachers are the real heroes, as are our soldiers. Don't spend too much time pondering the nature of life if it is going to stop you from living. Find a perspective on God and get busy. If not, may God help this self-indulgent, nihilistic generation.