Nothing is ever as it seems

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2007)

As humans, we're probably the only animal capable of contemplating our own mortality. Many say or think that, at the point of death, your whole life --- maybe only a part? -- flashes before your eyes. And who knows what you really see, anyway..?
That's what this movie is all about: it provides a glimpse of what might have been going on inside Donnie's head in the brief few seconds before he dies when a 747 engine drops though the roof of his parents' house and lands on top of him. So, all that you see from the start of this movie until near the end is simply Donnie's (Jake Gyllenhaal) last thoughts for this earth. Very near the start of the story, Donnie has a vision, meeting a strange figure called Frank who tells him that his world is coming to an end. That's a clue that Donnie's dying but I didn't cotton onto that until much later in the plot...
This narrative structure has been done at least once before that I know of: Jacob's Ladder (1990) had the story of a Vietnam soldier dying on an operating table. That story was again the soldier's weird thoughts before he succumbed to his wounds. If you haven't seen it, it is worth the time; but, it's quite a scary movie for some.
I'd seen Gyllenhaal, for the first time, not so long ago in Jarhead (2005) a movie I didn't like but was much impressed by his acting. So, that's one of the reasons I saw this one: his intensity is once again at the forefront of all the characters in Donnie Darko.
At another level, this movie is also partly about the American Dream and the lies that support it: there's the dream psychology coach Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), and what a ham he is, and very cunning to boot because he's got a nasty, dirty little secret; there's the idealistic English teacher Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) who's trying to open the students' minds to the delights of language  and gets more than she bargained for; there's the phys-ed coach Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant) who wants her girls to win a national dancing competition, and will stop at nothing to get it; there's school principal Cole (David Moreland) who wants nothing more than peace, quiet, and all the metaphorical garbage kept out of public view; and finally there's Donnie's family, (see cast list), jaded, all mixed up, almost brain dead, and resigned to la dolce vita, or what passes for that each good morning, America.
As Donnie, we learn from the story what might have happened had he lived, and as the final tune and final scenes play, what still might happen. Those final scenes are out of kilter with the whole thrust of the story (much like Jacob's Ladder, where the viewer knows what happens after the soldier dies  a narrative inconsistency) because Donnie's dead and the whole thing was his thoughts anyway. However, directors must cater for the viewer, tie up loose ends, and hope that nobody notices...
But, heck, in a fantasy dressed up as science fiction, anything can happen, right? I really enjoyed this movie: good performances, snappy dialog, very effective cinematography, and quite funny in parts. Recommended.