A good film, with a fervent cult following, but it shoots short of greatness

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2005)

Without a doubt there is an audience for Donnie Darko, which is perpetuated by the cult that it had gained following its release (and re-release as a director's cut, unseen by me). I also have no doubt that Richard Kelly, first-time writer/director of this film, is talented. But after seeing the film for the first time recently with its strengths I also found parts to become a little 'much' (pretentious may not be the right word to use, some would say it though), or at the least trying to be weirder (or surreal if you would put it that way) then it needed. The story is an unusual one, as is its central character played by Jake Ghyllenhaal, however Kelly tries to cover too much ground in one sitting of less than two hours, and also loses much of his conviction in the little coherence of the story by the last ten minutes (especially the last five, although it is not elusive or misunderstood by me, that's not what I had a problem with). There is also something off about how Kelly injects his dream-like projections in the film, which I'll get to in a moment.
First off, I would like to point out what I did find commendable in the film. Kelly is a very good director of actors, and out of Ghyllenhaal he does get a truly tortured soul to emerge through. Although one might find a similarly troubled character in a film like The Good Girl, he does make Darko his own. There are also good performances from Jena Malone as a sort-of love interest of Donnie's, and even by Patrick Swayze in a surprising and funny role as a motivational speaker. Also, Kelly knows how to set up certain scenes and let them work well in his 1988 setting (the introduction to Donnie's school was one, where there was an interesting collage of images against a cool 80's new-wave song), and creates some dark comedy in Donnie's rebellious nature at times (especially against the forces of authority). And in the first third/quarter of the film, Kelly sets up a story that attempts to dig into a kind of adolescent mood that follows many outsiders in high school movies.
Where I did find that the film went into territory that is questionable is how Donnie's strange phenomena is explained, or not explained. The elements of time travel, paranoid-schizophrenia, the controlling power of hallucinations, the end of the world, etc, are all jumbled up at times and Kelly doesn't seem to know where to go except to make things seem 'cool', perhaps, in a dark way (maybe like a high schooler Fight Club). A problem I had though is that, unlike a controlled and smart surrealist director like Bunuel or Lynch, Kelly doesn't take the visions and ideas anywhere except to a muddled point. There are so many ideas about topics and behavior that one almost loses sight of what the story is working to, which I won't reveal but is a little too obvious.
In a way, the end result reminds me of seeing a student film at a university- you appreciate and get entertained by scenes and lines and such, but you see more talent that will later emerge than actually present. In short, like with 2004's Garden State (also directed by a first-timer Zack Braff), the hype doesn't entirely suffice, at least for me. Maybe it might serve more on a repeat viewing, or of the director's cut (which are really just the deleted scenes on the theatrical DVD incorporated in redux style). For now, I give it a B grade, however I would recommend it for most high school kids looking for a 'head-trip' who are still vulnerable to masterpieces like Eraserhead and Un Chien Andalou.