Donnie Darko

I used to think I was pretty intelligent, cinematically. I followed "Memento" all the way in its journey down the twisting trail of memory, I can generally tell who's who in Hong Kong action films with large casts and incoherent plots, and I even mastered the multiple identities that drive "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective." But that was before I saw "Donnie Darko."

Ladies and gentlemen, Richard Kelley, in his capacities as writer and director of said film, has managed to completely boggle my tiny mind with his narrative of time travel, fate and destiny as they expand and confuse the life of a troubled teenager in October 1988. Try as I might, I can't get the ending of the film to add up; once the end doesn't add up, the middle's arithmetic starts looking pretty suspicious; and what is that beginning actually doing, anyway? But the very fact that I am actually trying to figure out what the hell was going on speaks to the strange, potent fascination this film creates. It's an exuberant combination of science fiction, coming-of-teenage drama, and likably adolescent comedy, and Kelly and his actors smash them all together with such vigor and conviction that even though you can't figure out what's going on, it feels compellingly real anyway.

Or at least as real as a film with a huge, talking, disfigured rabbit can feel. The rabbit's conversational partner is the titular Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal), a teenager who fights with and loves his family, tells hard misogynist jokes with his friends, nourishes hopes of eventual sexual activity, tries to control his anti-authority outbursts, has a therapist and medication to help him stay in control, and feels ambivalent about all of the above. In short, he's a thoroughly normal abnormal kid.

That is, until the rabbit starts telling him to do things. This is definitely not the kind, uplifting man-size rabbit called Harvey from the eponymous 1950 James Stewart movie. This carrot-chomper's name is Frank, and what he tells Donnie seems a bit strange - at least until he leads Donnie out of his house on a midnight walk just in time to escape an airplane engine that drops mysteriously through the sky and directly through Donnie's bedroom.

Donnie feels surer of Frank's advice after that, which is a bit terrifying, because as Donnie left the house that evening Frank told Donnie that the world would end in 28 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes and 42 seconds. Over this span of time, Donnie's life becomes ever more complicated, as he falls in love, gets suspended, continues to follow Frank's directions, and tries ever harder to understand the predicament he's in.

Amazing as it may seem, there is actually a lot more in the movie than that, including satires of censorship and self-help, disquisitions on the nature of space-time, and Michael Dukakis jokes (remember 1988?). Instead of trying to combine all these stuff into a smooth dramatic arc, Kelley just jumps precipitously from mood to mood without warning or obvious purpose.

It falls to Gyllenhaal to unify these disparate moods and elements, and he does it with such assurance that you'll wonder why more movies aren't made like this. Gyllenhaal is completely natural in his awkwardness, his adolescent rages, his occasional groping towards higher things, his sympathy and frustration and intelligence and surprising gravity. With Gyllenhaal at the eye of the storm, suddenly Kelley's shifts make this movie feel like real life, with its disparate parts and divided moods which only find any commonality in the person who experiences them. There's a giddy exhiliration to watching Donnie grow up years in 28 days, and Gyllenhaal makes it all believable.

It helps that Kelley cast nonfamous actors in the other roles as well, with the exception of an unexpectedly hilarious Patrick Swayze as a smarmy self-help guru and Drew Barrymore as the executive producer - I mean, the English teacher. (This movie bears no resemblance to past saccharine Barrymore productions like "Never Been Kissed," so you can put the possibility safely out of your mind.)

In particular, Jena Malone is affecting as Donnie's new belle Gretchen, spunky and scared in equal teenage proportion. Mary McDonnell as Donnie's mom brings out the flaws and graces of her character without even visibly trying; what's more, she actually looks like someone's mom - a crucial point which Hollywood casters often overlook. Really, all of the actors (except for those few stuck in oddly thankless roles) do an exemplary job in helping provide a realistic world in which supremely strange things happen to Donnie.

"Donnie Darko" will frustrate many viewers to no end, because it really does defy most every attempt to make sense of it. However, those with intellectual curiosity and a zest for life as it is actually lived should waste no time in attending - after all, you'll waste a lot of time afterwards trying to figure out what you just saw. If you're willing to have a shot at determining the destination with the minimal directions that Kelley supplies, you're sure to enjoy the bizarre, funny, sad truthfulness of the journey itself.

And it's entirely possible that your brain will be better-equipped to decode the film than mine was. I'll be watching "Ace Ventura" again now.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Regarding "Donnie Darko" and its gigantic rabbit's similarity to what appeared to be a gigantic rabbit in "Harvey," Ben Stern would like to point out that Harvey was not actually a rabbit but a "pooka," or "a large fairy spirit in animal form." Stern would also like to inform us that, should we desire additional information on "Harvey," it can be found at http://www.tigersweat.com/movies/harvey/. This is not quite a correction as such, but it is nevertheless always good to be dealing with subjects using the most information possible, and I thank Ben publicly (as I have already thanked him privately) for helping us to achieve this goal.

This film appears to have acquired the cult following it deserves. I have seen it twice since I wrote this review, and I feel like I understand the narrative now. The movie repays close attention. Have a look.

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