Contradicting Popular Opinion:
An Enquiry Concerning Donnie Darko
INTRO
When I first started here at IP, I publicly brainstormed a list of films to be covered here at CPO. A number of my acquaintances suggested Donnie Darko.
After the first CPO (on Eternal Sunshine…), I received emails such as:
….
Anyway, take a shot at Donnie Darko. Vaugueness (sic.) does not equal
brilliance.Happy Trails,
-Andrew B
A month later, in a message from IP’s Matt Y:
Do Donnie Darko!
And so on, and so on, every month for the last year and a quarter. Here is the most recent:
I’d love to hear your take on Donnie Darko. I had a friend who told me many times that I HAD to see Donnie Darko. Finally, I forked over the money, bought the DVD, and watched it fully expecting to be blown away. To this day, I have no idea what I saw. I can’t say it was good because I didn’t feel entertained. I did, however, keep watching in the hopes that at some point the movie would get around to explaining itself and I wouldn’t feel like I wasted 2 hours. Then again, I can’t say it was bad because maybe the meaning and the science of that movie just went over my head. At any rate, I came away from that movie knowing 2 things: a) It had something to do with time travel, and b) I miss the days when time travel meant getting the De Lorean up to 88mph.
Any way, that movie has become a cult classic, and I’d like to see where your opinion lies. Even if you liked it, an explanation of it would be most beneficial. Keep up the great work.
-Daniel
NOTE: Though I have seen both original and director’s cuts of the film, I have most recently seen the latter. Therefore, the focus will be towards that version.
Bunnies, Time Travel, and Patrick Swayze: CPO examines Donnie Darko
BUT FIRST!
What the IP Staff has to say about Donnie Darko
Mark B: It is boring and makes no sense.
Tom Pandich: Donnie Darko is a good film to placate the collegiate crowd of kids who want to be on the cutting edge of pop culture just as long as its safe. Donnie Darko fits squarely in between the “Fundamentals of Beer” and Stewie Griffin posters hanging on a frat boy’s wall. Donnie Darko is a good film, but its huge missteps in story telling and the general feel that this is a very packaged film makes Donnie Darko a good but forgettable film (you know, if people wouldn’t be shoving it into your face constantly).
(Kennedy Note: I’m not sure what Pandich means here by the term “packaged.” Certainly the film could be more subversive or deviant or explicit, but I’m not sure that that is where his meaning lies.)
Ryan Closs: When I popped it in the first time I loved the soundtrack and enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I however haven’t watched it once since then. Which doesn’t really speak well of it. I’m of more than slightly mixed views about it, I think it’s a fun and interesting movie, but I think it’s a little trite and has some of the worst special effects I’ve ever seen.
(Kennedy Note: Worst special effects he’s ever seen? I have absolutely no idea what Closs is talking about nor which films he has seen.)
Scott Sawitz: [A]t its core Donnie Darko is a film that lives too much in ambiguities and not enough in realities. The core of the film has the potential for greatness; Donnie (Jake) is a good character and the film has plenty of potential to be good. There is a larger story of metaphysical proportions around as well as the obvious Christ status Donnie has to the world around him. The problem is that the film isn’t developed enough to bring this out; it’s all assumptive and speculative, these grand existential and messianic deeper “meanings” behind the film.
(Kennedy Note: I don’t think that there is an “obvious Christ status” to Donnie at all. I see it in “Old Man and the Sea”; I see it in E.T.; I see it in the third Matrix flick. I don’t see it here. Honestly, I see Frank the Bunny as more of a Christ figure than Darko.)
Ah, Donnie Darko, how to we sum it up for those who haven’t seen the flick? Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the eponymous Donnie Darko, a somnambulist with behavioral problems from an upper-middle class WASP-y family, who is saved from certain death by mysterious jet engine due to the warning of a mystical spectre in a bunny suit named Frank.
The problem is that Donnie was supposed to die, and thus Frank has created a tangent reality set to either self-implode or destroy the entire universe in a few weeks time. That, and Frank starts convincing Donnie to commit acts of vandalism and arson.
At any rate, Donnie starts seeing Abyss water aliens protruding from people’s abdomens, studies time-travel, hooks up with the new girl, exposes a motivational speaker as a fraud (and pedophile!), before eventually becoming unstuck in time and allowing the jet engine to squish him. This thing ends up most likely saving his girlfriend (whom he has now never met), his mom, Frank the bunny, and maybe the universe as we know it.
Here are the major complaints I have against the film:
COMPLAINT 1: Drew Barrymore. Drew Barrymore gives the only bad performance in the film. She is not a particularly skilled actress, nor is she well suited for her role as Donnie’s artsy English teacher. At the time of the film’s release however, she was the biggest celebrity on the project. Plus, she has a producer credit on the film, so it isn’t particularly difficult to figure out why she was cast.
COMPLAINT 2: There are a couple of gimmicky eye ball shots that seem more appropriate to Italian zombie movies than the film at hand. There are some more gimmicky shots within the film (360s, sideways shots, etc) but they aren’t terribly annoying. Actually, for most of them, they seem to serve a purpose in telling the story. That’s a rarity for films made after 1983.
Were I making the film, I would go a completely different (not necessarily better) route. Follow me on this aside for a minute, won’t you? Below the surface of Donnie Darko are urges of violence and sexuality. The film is also notably anti-authority. It doesn’t place a lot of faith in teachers, or principals, or parents, or psychiatrists. What does this mean? We shoot it in black and white, through a red filter. Stark contrasts, expressionistic lighting, the works. It’s got Darko in the title; might as well be a noir.
COMPLAINT 3: The film highlights Donnie’s ability to see through bullshit. It hits this point a couple of times. Yet, Donnie is twice hypnotized in the flick.
Hypnotism is bullshit. It is a little controversial to say that thing, but hypnotism is bullshit. It relies solely on the person’s (possibly subconscious) willingness to please the hypnotist and act in accordance with how they are expected to act. People who remember things through hypnosis are more often than not, just making shit up. Hypnosis leads to confabulation.
With what is known about our title character, I doubt the psychiatrist would be “able to” hypnotize him.
Of course, this happens within the context of a movie with time-travel. So it isn’t too much of a stretch to have hypnosis be a real thing in the film’s world.
COMPLAINT 4: While I like the soundtrack to Darko, I generally dislike the score. I could really live without the Eyes Wide Shut, cat walking over the piano, sort of score.
COMPLAINT 5: The film seems to have a bit too much contempt for Darko’s foils. Not only does the gym teacher espouse crappy new age mumbo jumbo, she is also shown to be a fool with regards to most other aspects of her life. Not only is Patrick Swayze a sleazy Tony Robbins self-help guru cocksucker, he is also a pedophile. I think it pushes a little too hard to make sure we know who the bad guys are.
This aspect is especially strange given that one of the main criticisms the movie receives is about its ambiguity. Donnie Darko is far from ambiguous here.
COMPLAINT 6: Another major gripe about Donnie Darko that I often hear is, “the film makes no sense.” I never really had trouble following what was going on in either version of the flick. Although, I know of lot of folks who didn’t like The Matrix because they couldn’t understand it (opposed to myself, who dislikes the film because I do understand it).
BUT there is something about Darko that I don’t quite follow. What is Frank’s motivation? If we are to believe that the actions in the film are something other than a schizophrenic episode flashing before Darko’s eyes moments before death, we must then ask why does Frank guide Darko the way in which he does? Why does he save Darko? Why does he create the tangent reality? Why does he lead Darko on this path of “ironic” creation through destruction? Is Frank the Bunny really Frank, or something else entirely? Time? Destiny? Fate? God? Harvey?
COMPLAINT 7: Anachronisms. There are a bunch. Modern license plates, modern Old Spice, Blockbuster cards, and so on. But I find this thing forgivable in a non-biopic made for 5 million bucks and shot in 28 days. In 60 million dollar movie like A Beautiful Mind, similar mistakes are unconscionable.
Those are my only problems with the movie. Otherwise, it is well acted, well-shot, and generally a pretty good flick. If you gauge it as a sci-fi movie, it is notably better than most of its peers. Its time travel makes as much or more sense than your standard time-travel flick.
If you rate it against other cult films, it is head and shoulders above most of those. For a cult movie, Donnie Darko is an outstanding film. Think about your other cult films. Most are ridiculously lousy. 2,000 Maniacs, Blood Feast, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Deep Throat: all of these are bad movies. Does Darko deserve to be in the IMDB top 150, though? Well, probably not.
I believe Laurence Olivier once said something to the effect of, “When you make any piece of art, there are going to be smart people that don’t like it for valid reasons.” There are logical reasons to dislike Donnie Darko. It moves with the pace of a ’70s film, and will be found boring by many folk weaned on films on the ’90s. It does feature goofy teenagers saying goofy teenage things. It’s got a demonic bunny rabbit. But what is it about Donnie Darko that seems to cause such polarizing viewpoints?
Maybe a proper quote will help clear things up for me. Talking about his Crash, Cronenberg said,
I’m questioning a lot of things that are, certainly in Hollywood terms, the immutables of film narrative. First of all, that you must have a narrative. Secondly, that it must go in a certain way. Thirdly, that your characters should be sympathetic and should evolve and you should tie everything up, all those “well made play” kind of things Hollywood has been so successful selling over the years- a perfectly legitimate thing to do. But when you’re not doing it and your audiences expectations are formed by that, they don’t know what to do.
These ideas can probably account for some of the divisiveness of Donnie Darko. Donnie Darko certainly doesn’t start out the film as a tremendously likable fellow. He’s a rude, screwed up, emotionally detached, spoiled rich kid. For most people, the film certainly doesn’t tie up all the loose ends in the third reel.
Is ambiguity a bad thing? No. Ultimately, all meaning in art comes from interpretation. We tend to view things with straightforward meanings as low art, from the simple morality plays of fairy tales to after-school specials. Things lacking simplicity in meaning tend towards the “high art” distinction. There is no simple lesson to be learned from Hamlet or Citizen Kane. They are, to use a tired cliché, “statements on the human condition.”
That is not to say that Darko has much in common with Hamlet or Kane aside from the presence of a titular character. Many have criticized the film as (Tom P’s words) junk philosophy. I don’t particularly think that that is the case. What I get from Darko is the idea that, “I don’t know what is right, but I’m sure it’s not that.” It asks some questions and says that there aren’t easy answers. Those are perfectly reasonable things to do.
