Donnie Darko

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2004)

Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), a disturbed 16 year old teenager that has an emotional problem. I have been doing some research and i think the medical name is called "Distress". Distress, is an emotional problem, and it cause's day-light hallucinations, violence and sleep-walking. Some things that cause Distress are stress and smoking. In the movie, Donnie is standing at the bus stop with his sister Samantha, Samantha's friend Joanie, Cherita Chen and Donnie's two best friend's Ronald Fisher and Sean Smith. Sean offers a smoke to Donnie. In the movie, it says:
Sean Smith: And now that you're famous you gotta have a smoke. Donnie Darko: What happens if you tell Mom and Dad about this, Sam? Samantha Darko: You'll put Ariel in the garbage disposal.
The reason he doesn't want his parent's to find out is because smoking can make Distress worse. Donnie's stress is caused by either out of school or because be keeps sleep walking. In the movie, Donnie has to take medication. Some thing you don't know is that the tablets are really placebos. A site describe's placebos as:
Imagine being prescribed a course of pills made of sugar and paste. They contain no active ingredients that could possibly alter the course of your illness, let alone make you better. And yet you do get better. The dummy pills work a strange kind of magic. There is in fact a great body of evidence to suggest that placebo or dummy treatments can sometimes work as well or even better than real medicines. Patients on placebos can even experience side-effects that mimic real drugs.
You don't know that they're placebos because they cut it out from the movie. Some people think that Donnie Darko is about God and about the future. The reason they think that is because Donnie and his phycologist have a little chat on "does God exist?". Well, until i watch Donnie Darko for the 149 time, which mean's next week, i might get more idea's of what the movie means. Hope you guy's liked the movie! TTFN!