Hallucinogenic... Hypnotic... Harvey?

Rating: 9/10 (29 March 2003)

Possibly one of the strangest films of 2001, Donnie Darko is an intriguing bag of goodies. Basically, paranoid schizophrenia affects the mind of a late-'80's suburban teenager, who falls victim to the hallucinogenic effects of prescription narcotics, and he befriends a mangled bunny who tells him the world will end on a specific date, so he researches time travel from a local author who has lost her mind, and eventually he realizes the world's end can be avoided by large Abyss-like bubbles which ooze from peoples' chests at random and cause them to travel back in time, yet unfortunately his death, avoided in one continuum, will reveal itself in the other. That makes for an interesting two hours. The film is charming, funny, and decidedly offbeat, and moves at a laid-back, 'suburban' kind of pace. Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal are both great as bro and sis, and Mary McDonnell is fantastic as always. The direction and writing are both commendable, setting up a doomed atmosphere which sucks us in but keeps us entertained. However, the only flaw to this film is the casting of Drew Barrymore in a totally unnecessary role as the English teacher. She is absolutely dreadful here, and the only reason she was cast is because she is one of the film's producers and helped get it made. I commend her for that, but why did she have to force the screenwriter to write her in? That's a ridiculous abuse of power, and her irrelevant scenes represent this film's sole weakness. However, this movie still earns a high recommendation- 3&1/2 stars. It was refreshing to see a film set in the eighties that didn't exploit it's period with bad clothes, music etc.- a'la Wedding Singer- rather, I thought the soundtrack was ingeniously contrived- Echo & the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" starts off the film wonderfully.... Check this little gem out when you get a chance.