Things I Love More Than Oxygen: Case File #1: Donnie Darko

I first heard about a little Indie film oddity with a bizarre name on Jonothan Ross' Film '01. After seeing a thirty second or less preview of the film I was unexpectedly obsessed. Living in a small Shropshire town at the time my options for viewing foreign/indie films were almost non existent. I considered spending a shitload of money on a train ticket to Birmingham to see it and was crushed when I missed out during a Christmas shopping trip in Manchester.
Then it came to Ludlow, my hometown, any way. Go figure.

It didn't dissapoint either. Donnie Darko is the directoral and screenwriting debut of Richard Kelly and filmed for a measly $1 Million. It was helped by two things; smart writing and celebrity assistance, most prominently in Drew Barrymore's production company. It also launched the career of some bloke called Jake Gyllenhall. Whoever he is.

It is, to this day, my favourite film. I love it so much I had a tattoo referencing the film. Specifically the scene where Donnie has written Frank's countdown to armageddon on his arm in ink with demented penmanship. Except mine is in very permanent ink.

It is the story of the titular Donnie, a disturbed, mentally ill young man growing up in 1980s, small town America. He is on medication and sleepwalks often, waking up all over town. One night he sleepwalks to a golf course where he sees Frank, a seven foot tall man dressed in a creepy, demonic rabbit suit. Frank tells him the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. When he gets home, he finds a Jet Plane engine has dropped through his bedroom ceiling, which would have killed him. Oh, and there's no other plane parts around, nor for that matter a missing plane.
Donnie enters therapy, while simultaneously acting out Frank's chaotic, anarchistic will on his small town and trying to unravel the mystery stretched out before him. Oh, and he will also fall in love, travel through time (possibly), challenge the moral authority of his world and save the universe (again, possibly).

Donnie Darko is a film literally overflowing with ideas, yet none of them feel overwrought or padded. It all fits together. It cobbles together ideas of philosophy, mental illness, mythology, religion, spirituality and science fiction into a cohesive whole. Its ending is very, very open, but in a way which will allow you to impart your own interpritation onto the film. Its all about what you take from the experience.

Its cast is pretty terrific, without a bum note among them. Gyllenhall (Jarhead, Brokeback Mountain) is great in the lead, at once likeable and charismatic, while creepy, disturbed and desperate in his descent. Mary McDonnell (Independence Day, Battlestar Galactica) plays his mother, a woman torn between standing up for her son and falling into line with the community around them. There are other characters worthy of note, such as Noah Wyle (ER) as Donnie's high school science teacher and Patrick Swayze (Ghost, Dirty Dancing) as an insidious motivational speaker.

If this review has thus far led you to believe Donnie Darko to be a dry and humourless in it's execution, then I apologise for misleading you. There is a great deal of humanity at the core of the film. From Donnie's psychiatrist sessions, to his final speech with his mother, to the closing montage of people at rest, overlapped with the former Christmas number one Gary Jules - Madworld, there is alot of heart on show.
I also hadn't expected the film to be as funny as it was. It is interlaced with very funny moments; from the argument across the dinner table to the aftermath of Kitty Farmer's (Beth Grant) Love-Hate lesson, there are plenty of laughs amid the dramatic tension. Also, one word; Smurfs.
And all that that doesn't detract an inch from the tangible sense of dread and foreboding which runs through the film. A sense that time is truly running out, that a crescendo is fast approaching. And then that finale, which infuriated many, which left me excited, excited at all the possibilities. For what is the Universe, if not endless posibilities?

And lastly, a personal side bar; Donnie Darko changed the way I looked at storytelling. It helped me understand that linear, realist fiction isn't the only way to tell a story. I was shown a new world, where metaphysics, metaphor and surrealist elements can flow together in a profound way. I was shown that stories need to be more than just the telling of a tale, I was shown that it needs to say something. Donnie Darko speaks volumes.