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Dan Owen reviews
20th Century Fox
- Cert: R
- Cat.no: FOX2003640DVD
- Running time: 113 minutes
- Year: 2001
- Pressing: 2002
- Region(s): 1, NTSC
- Chapters: 28
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 (Eng only)
- Languages: English, French
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: $29.98
- Extras:Commentary with Richard Kelly & Jake Gyllenhaal, Commentary withCast & Crew, Deleted/Extended Scenes (with optional Director Commentary),’Cunning Visions’ Infomercials, ‘The Philosophy Of Time Travel’ Book,Website Gallery, ‘Mad World’ Music Video, Art Gallery – ProductionStills & Concept Art, Cast & Crew Information, Theatrical Trailer and TVSpots.
Director:
- Richard Kelly
Cast:
- Donnie Darko: Jake Gyllenhaal
Gretchen Ross: Jena Malone
Mrs Rose Darko: Mary McDonnell
Karen Pomeroy: Drew Barrymore
Jim Cunningham: Patrick Swayze
Mr Edward Darko: Holmes Osborne
Dr Lilian Thurman: Katharine Ross
Prof Kenneth Monnitoff: Noah Wyle
Donnie Darkois the ingenious fusion of a suburban black comedy teen-movie and a macabrehorror mystery – with the tone of a David Lynch foray into unsettling paranoiaand sinister visual punctuations.
The titular hero is a teen living in the late-80s with severe emotionalproblems and dependency on drugs prescribed by his psychiatrist DrThurman. Donnie is also prone to walking in his sleep; which is where hemeets Frank, a skull-faced Easter Bunny who tells him the world will endin 28 days time…
Sounds weird? If weird is your thing, keep reading. Donnie Darko is aflawed but accomplished debut feature from writer-director Richard Kelly- who gives his movie smart dialogue (a Smurfs sex conversation issublime), bizarre visuals, unhinged humour and some seriously spookyvoice-overs.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie as an endearing everyman trapped in astrange suburban brightness where schools simplify all life experienceinto varying extremes of “fear” or “love” and local self-help author JimCunningham (the ironically cast 80s megastar Patrick Swayze) deliverssaccharine lectures to bored students.
Gyllenhaal’s concise performance is the backbone for this increasinglyenjoyable voyage into Darko’s strange quest to make sense of his(hallucinatory?) rabbit figure that seems to predict the future. But thesupporting cast should not be forgotten – particularly the lastingimpression made by his parents (real-life mother Maggie Gyllenhall andHolmes Osborne).
Other cast members tend to become interchangeable – particularlyDonnie’s friends – but there is a nice restrained turn from Jena Maloneas Donnie’s shy girlfriend Gretchen. The “star power” of both PatrickSwayze and Drew Barrymore is cruelly wasted – particularly Barrymore,who plays the pointless role of odd High School teacher Karen Pomeroy.
However, Donnie Darko is really all about plot and tonality. Thescreenplay is well paced and bustling with ideas that don’t all makesense once the conclusion becomes a memory. But, hey, it makes a lotmore sense than Lost Highway – so the fact Kelly actually provides areasonable denouement shouldn’t be sniffed at. The story, taken withinthe warped logic of the movie’s style, has a resolution to shouldprovoke some after-movie debate if nothing else!
Overall, filmmaker Richard Kelly deserves a chance to expand on thepromise he shows here – as his film is a difficult mix of black comedy,teen angst and horror-fantasy that manages to combine the sensibilitiesof David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Darren Aronofsky’s Pi with theessence of a paranoid Buffy The Vampire Slayer! Any newcomer with theability to pull off that combination deserves your applause.
Sadly, Donnie Darko was a total dud at the US box-office because ofpoor marketing (admittedly, it is a tough sell), but its future as acult movie beloved by teens is almost assured. Unsettling, funny,fascinating, frustrating… if you like films that challenge yourcreative side – give Donnie Darko a whirl.
Donnie Darko comes as a single-disk release in an Amoray case. Theartwork on the case is moody, if a little cliched in the teenhorror/thriller genre (black background, single-hued concernedexpressions from the cast…)
The menu screens are good; effortlessly bringing a real sense ofimposing dread to the viewing experience before the first reel evenbegins! Stylish, simplistic, fast and it perfectly encapsulates the toneof the movie ahead.
The 2.35:1 (anamorphic) widescreen transfer of the movie isn’t thatgreat. There are noticeable smears in the semi-dark scenes, and theblacks are disappointingly tinged with greyness. Scenes in daylight arequite vibrant and effective, but with all things considered the levelsof detail aren’t terribly high and the overall effect is sadlydisappointing.
There are some nice surround sound effects in Donnie Darko – with theDolby Digital 5.1 track spitting out some occasionally spine-tinglingsonic effects. Most memorable is Frank’s incredibly spooky automatonvoice reverberating around the rear speakers, but the DD5.1 sound mixalso does a good job with the film’s repeated excursions into 80’s popmusic.
Thankfully ‘Fox’ have put some effort into the DVD release of DonnieDarko to try and entice audiences who missed its cinema release to buythe film for the unknown jewel it is. So we have a commendable line-upof extra features.
First we have a Commentary by Richard Kelly & Jake Gyllenhaalt: Asolid enough commentary from director and lead actor, which manages tothrow some light on some hidden facets of the film.
Commentary with the Cast and Crew: A fairly entertaining series ofviewpoints on the movie from those closely involved, although theprevious commentary track has generally covered all the bases already.
Deleted/Extended Scenes (with optional Director Commentary): There are20 deleted or extended scenes from the movie, most only about 15 secondslong. Each deleted scene is generally quite interesting, and a few shinelight on some key moments. The extended scenes are not much differentfrom the final cuts, but still manage to communicate even moreback-story that fans should lap up.
“Cunning Visions” Infomercials: First we have “Infomercials” which arethe annoyingly amateur commercials Donnie and his class are forced towatch in school. So bad they’re good. “Infomercials With Commentary” isin the same vein.
Then we have the “His Name Is Frank” booklet and “Book Covers” – theseare still images of prominent books seen in the movie. Of interest onlyto those people truly dedicated to the film!
“The Philosophy Of Time Travel” Book is a quite interesting series ofstill images that show exactly what Donnie’s book was all about. And youthought filmmakers would just type gobbledegook on pages of such props?
Website Gallery: Some bizarre images from the website. Hardly worthputting on the disk!
“Mad World” Music Video: An average music video to publicize the movieto MTV viewers. Didn’t work.
Art Gallery – Production Stills & Concept Art: Some nice artwork andimages used during pre-production on the movie. Interesting.
Cast & Crew Information: Turgid text-based look at cast/crewfilmographies.
Theatrical Trailer: A good trailer for the movie (hey, I would’ve goneto see it!) but it obviously didn’t entice the US market.
TV Spots: “Sacrifice”, “Darker”, “Era”, “Cast” and “Dark”: As alwaysthese are just shortened versions of the trailer – to be shown duringadvert breaks on TV.
Overall, there are some pretty good extra features here – although mostare superfluous or only of interesting to geeks. Still, for a movie thattanked at the box-office Stateside the amount of extra material here isa real blessing for fans of this unusual movie. Recommended.
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E-mail Dan Owen
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.