Cellar Door

Today is the worst kind of autumn day. The grey sky leaks continual rain and the blowing wind turns the golden carpet of fallen leaves into a swirling swarm of wet, rotting foliage. We retired to the cosy fire side with warm tea and time travelled back to 1988, where Middlesex, Virginia was basking in the loveliest of autumnal sun shine.
The following is my once published and long forgotten review of the film.


“Destruction is a Form of Creation”

Donnie Darko is a film that defies the genres of modern filmmaking. Part science fiction, part thriller, an off-beat teen film about time travel, mental illness, childhood, paranoia, a giant bunny rabbit named Frank, and the impending apocalypse. But director Richard Kelly’s first film goes far beyond anything he or I could ever have expected.

It is fall 1988 in the middle-class suburban town of Middlesex, Virginia. The US Presidential election is in full swing and the inhabitants of whitewashed Middlesex are blissfully unaware that the world will end in less than one month.
Troubled teenager Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), a highly intelligent but increasingly disturbed Schizophrenic is the only inhabitant aware of this frightening prophecy. Prone to sleepwalking and terrifying hallucinations, Donnie wakes one night to a mysterious voice calling him from outside the house. Standing on the Darko’s lawn, a 6ft rabbit known only as Frank (James Duval), informs him that the world will come to an end in exactly 28 days, five hours, 52 minutes and 12 seconds. The next morning Donnie returns home to find a jet engine – unidentified by the FAA - has crashed into the room he would have been sleeping in if he had not been seduced outside by Frank’s haunting voice. Did Frank save him from being killed?
Heavily medicated by his baffled psychiatrist, Dr. Thurman (Katharine Ross), distant from his loving but frustrated parents (Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne) and controlled by his new friend Frank, Donnie embarks on a quest for meaning in which he will encounter time travel, violence, isolation, love and ultimately death.

As the countdown to the apocalypse proceeds, Donnie’s behaviour becomes increasingly anti-social. Frank encourages him to carry out destructive and violent acts, beginning with the flooding of Donnie’s conservative, private high school and culminating with the burning down of the mansion owned by sleazy local inspirational speaker, Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), whom Donnie publicly denounces as “the fucking anti-Christ”. The only allies to Donnie’s turmoil come in the form of innocent girlfriend Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone), reluctant science teacher Dr. Monnitoff (Noah Wyle), and mysterious local geriatric recluse and author, Grandma Death (Patience Cleveland).

Richard Kelly’s magnificent screenplay was bought to the screen with the help of actress and executive producer Drew Barrymore, who plays a small role in the film as Donnie’s ambitious yet inexperienced English teacher, Miss Pomeroy. Barrymore was responsible for hiring Jake Gyllenhaal whose portrayal of the title role is what makes the character of Donnie Darko so believable, while the haunting score composed by Michael Andrews adds beautifully to the eerie feel of the film - along with the carefully chosen 80’s soundtrack featuring Echo and the Bunnymen, Tears for Fears, Joy Division and Duran Duran.

Donnie Darko is a unique film. It is clever, surreal, funny, creepy and at times incredibly heartbreaking. Often indulgent, Kelly’s trick of switching topics from the sexual habits of Smurfs to the science of time travel is quite baffling, but shows the freedom of the independent filmmaker at its best. An ambitious debut bought to life by an all-star cast, Donnie Darko is a visually stunning and powerfully moving masterpiece.