Donny and the bunny man

Rating: 9/10 (12 June 2005)

Donnie Darko is a brainy but depressed teenager. Between a familial cocoon on the verge of splitting up and a conformist high school, he's suffocating. His only real friend is a giant rabbit named Frank. The latter orders him to commit acts of violence and predicts him the end of the world in 28 days, 06 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds...
...And this is what grabbed my attention about the American independent movie made by a 26 year old young director, Richard Kelly. I was amazed at the general enthusiasm on this site around this flick while knowing it opened around the world with little hype (in France, it had a very quiet opening). "Donnie Darko" could occupy a prominent place among the movies which were sleepers at the time of their release but which gained the status of cult-movie. I have heard about it thanks to one of my favorite bands: Echo and the Bunnymen. Their grand song "the Killing Moon" opens a movie which in its first quarter of an hour presents a series of sequences drastically different in the content and form (from the moment when Donnie awakes in the country to the presentation of his high school to the first apparition of Frank, the rabbit). The first merit we can attribute to Kelly's flick is having gathered several cinema genres in a sole genuine story (fantastic, comedy, drama, thriller, teenage movie). This variety is equaled by the liberty of tones that characterizes the movie. Going from fantasizing to realism, swinging from fantastic to comedy as if it followed naturally, Kelly also excels in imposing climates. The more the movies goes on, the more intensity it accumulates. An intensity that Kelly controls without extreme special effects and by little touches, notably with the apparitions of the evil rabbit which pepper the work. This creature is a kind of witness of Donnie's troubled mind.
As a matter of fact, the movie wavers nearly all the time between 2 poles: the exterior world and Donnie's inner psycho. We penetrate in the tormented mind of a teenager who is prey to a profound discontentment and especially rebelled against the world that surrounds him. By committing odd and alarming acts suggested by Frank, he expresses his contempt and his hate for this shameful world. So, in a way Frank is the intermediary point between Donnie's mind and his exterior contact.
But these acts are for Kelly an excellent means to break the deceitful appearances and to remove masks of hateful characters. To a second degree, "Donnie Darko" is adorned with a scathing social critic whose target is especially the education system. This one is ossified, remains paralyzed in its conformist educational methods. One of its goals is turning young female pupils in pompom girls! And in one memorable sequence, the headmaster rejects Drew Barrymore's educational methods without explaining why! The critic is still more acid when the teachers welcomes nearly with open arms a persuasive preacher (an unexpected Patrick Swayze) who claims knowing how to crush fear thanks to a total master of positive energy. Ultimately, it is total idolatry or credulity for shameless charlatanism that the movie also attacks and when we learn Swayze's hidden secret, the satire is extra intense.
Furthermore, Kelly also skilfully incorporated elements of teenage movie in his rich work and these elements are generally the ones which are put aside in teenage movies. The most important one is the difficulties of communication between teenagers and their parents. Donnie suffers but his parents (even his girlfriend or close relatives) are incapable of understanding him, although they seem to agree their son on certain points like the education in his school. Even his analysis sessions are of little help for him. What can he do? Perhaps contemplating the possibility of time travel...
As for the cast, it alternates good and, let's say, less good surprises. The best: Jake Gyllenhaal is a real revelation, both frail and disturbing. The actress who acts his gym teacher also stands out even if she acts a grotesque character. But thanks to this, the movie is blessed with comic moments of a high quality. Then, I have always thought that Patrick Swayze had limited gifts as an actor but here, he is cast against type in a role for which he was the ideal man. However, the choice of Drew Barrymore for the young literature teacher is debatable. She's not bad at all but she was too young for the role (this is my opinion).
I don't want to reveal the end but with it we could write that we've come full circle. It ends a movie which opens prospects to any possible interpretations. Not meant pejoratively, the screenplay has a good packet of holes or ambiguous points. Moreover, the logic behind the whole story is hard to perceive. The truth finds itself neither in Donnie's mind, nor in the exterior world. Maybe in every viewer's opinion. I address to the people who haven't watched "Donnie Darko": if you wish to watch it and at the end of the first projection you feel bemused, don't reject it like I did. Like "Jacob's Ladder" (1990), like "the Sixth Sense" (1999), it requires several viewings before the qualities of Kelly's work reveal themselves before our eyes. An undeniable tour-de-force in the teenage movie as well as a readable work on several levels, spanning fantastic movie, teenage movie and social satire, "Donnie Darko" should attract any movie-goer given it doesn't necessarily target a specific category of viewers.