Extras:
Commentary with Richard Kelly & Jake Gyllenhaal, Commentary with
Cast & 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 - Production
Stills & Concept Art, Cast & Crew Information, Theatrical Trailer and TV
Spots.
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 Darko
is the ingenious fusion of a suburban black comedy teen-movie and a macabre
horror mystery - with the tone of a David Lynch foray into unsettling paranoia
and sinister visual punctuations.
The titular hero is a teen living in the late-80s with severe emotional
problems and dependency on drugs prescribed by his psychiatrist Dr
Thurman. Donnie is also prone to walking in his sleep; which is where he
meets Frank, a skull-faced Easter Bunny who tells him the world will end
in 28 days time...
Sounds weird? If weird is your thing, keep reading. Donnie Darko is a
flawed but accomplished debut feature from writer-director Richard Kelly
- who gives his movie smart dialogue (a Smurfs sex conversation is
sublime), bizarre visuals, unhinged humour and some seriously spooky
voice-overs.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie as an endearing everyman trapped in a
strange suburban brightness where schools simplify all life experience
into varying extremes of "fear" or "love" and local self-help author Jim
Cunningham (the ironically cast 80s megastar Patrick Swayze) delivers
saccharine lectures to bored students.
Gyllenhaal's concise performance is the backbone for this increasingly
enjoyable voyage into Darko's strange quest to make sense of his
(hallucinatory?) rabbit figure that seems to predict the future. But the
supporting cast should not be forgotten - particularly the lasting
impression made by his parents (real-life mother Maggie Gyllenhall and
Holmes Osborne).
Other cast members tend to become interchangeable - particularly
Donnie's friends - but there is a nice restrained turn from Jena Malone
as Donnie's shy girlfriend Gretchen. The "star power" of both Patrick
Swayze 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. The
screenplay is well paced and bustling with ideas that don't all make
sense once the conclusion becomes a memory. But, hey, it makes a lot
more sense than Lost Highway - so the fact Kelly actually provides a
reasonable denouement shouldn't be sniffed at. The story, taken within
the warped logic of the movie's style, has a resolution to should
provoke some after-movie debate if nothing else!
Overall, filmmaker Richard Kelly deserves a chance to expand on the
promise he shows here - as his film is a difficult mix of black comedy,
teen angst and horror-fantasy that manages to combine the sensibilities
of David Lynch's Lost Highway and Darren Aronofsky's Pi with the
essence of a paranoid Buffy The Vampire Slayer! Any newcomer with the
ability to pull off that combination deserves your applause.
Sadly, Donnie Darko was a total dud at the US box-office because of
poor marketing (admittedly, it is a tough sell), but its future as a
cult movie beloved by teens is almost assured. Unsettling, funny,
fascinating, frustrating... if you like films that challenge your
creative side - give Donnie Darko a whirl.
Donnie Darko comes as a single-disk release in an Amoray case. The
artwork on the case is moody, if a little cliched in the teen
horror/thriller genre (black background, single-hued concerned
expressions from the cast...)
The menu screens are good; effortlessly bringing a real sense of
imposing dread to the viewing experience before the first reel even
begins! Stylish, simplistic, fast and it perfectly encapsulates the tone
of the movie ahead.
The 2.35:1 (anamorphic) widescreen transfer of the movie isn't that
great. There are noticeable smears in the semi-dark scenes, and the
blacks are disappointingly tinged with greyness. Scenes in daylight are
quite vibrant and effective, but with all things considered the levels
of detail aren't terribly high and the overall effect is sadly
disappointing.
There are some nice surround sound effects in Donnie Darko - with the
Dolby Digital 5.1 track spitting out some occasionally spine-tingling
sonic effects. Most memorable is Frank's incredibly spooky automaton
voice reverberating around the rear speakers, but the DD5.1 sound mix
also does a good job with the film's repeated excursions into 80's pop
music.
Thankfully 'Fox' have put some effort into the DVD release of Donnie
Darko to try and entice audiences who missed its cinema release to buy
the film for the unknown jewel it is. So we have a commendable line-up
of extra features.
First we have a Commentary by Richard Kelly & Jake Gyllenhaalt: A
solid enough commentary from director and lead actor, which manages to
throw some light on some hidden facets of the film.
Commentary with the Cast and Crew: A fairly entertaining series of
viewpoints on the movie from those closely involved, although the
previous commentary track has generally covered all the bases already.
Deleted/Extended Scenes (with optional Director Commentary): There are
20 deleted or extended scenes from the movie, most only about 15 seconds
long. Each deleted scene is generally quite interesting, and a few shine
light on some key moments. The extended scenes are not much different
from the final cuts, but still manage to communicate even more
back-story that fans should lap up.
"Cunning Visions" Infomercials: First we have "Infomercials" which are
the annoyingly amateur commercials Donnie and his class are forced to
watch in school. So bad they're good. "Infomercials With Commentary" is
in the same vein.
Then we have the "His Name Is Frank" booklet and "Book Covers" - these
are still images of prominent books seen in the movie. Of interest only
to those people truly dedicated to the film!
"The Philosophy Of Time Travel" Book is a quite interesting series of
still images that show exactly what Donnie's book was all about. And you
thought filmmakers would just type gobbledegook on pages of such props?
Website Gallery: Some bizarre images from the website. Hardly worth
putting on the disk!
"Mad World" Music Video: An average music video to publicize the movie
to MTV viewers. Didn't work.
Art Gallery - Production Stills & Concept Art: Some nice artwork and
images used during pre-production on the movie. Interesting.
Cast & Crew Information: Turgid text-based look at cast/crew
filmographies.
Theatrical Trailer: A good trailer for the movie (hey, I would've gone
to see it!) but it obviously didn't entice the US market.
TV Spots: "Sacrifice", "Darker", "Era", "Cast" and "Dark": As always
these are just shortened versions of the trailer - to be shown during
advert breaks on TV.
Overall, there are some pretty good extra features here - although most
are superfluous or only of interesting to geeks. Still, for a movie that
tanked at the box-office Stateside the amount of extra material here is
a real blessing for fans of this unusual movie. Recommended.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
