Sonder that profound feeling you get when the realisation that everyone is the main player in their own film, they call life.  It’s belittling and empowering, I’m everything and nothing all at once.  The camera panning from the therapist, Dr. Lilian Thurman (Katharine Ross) who woke up in the night short of breath disturbed by something she can’t quite remember, trying to make the connection, The relationship of the teachers is established, her sleeping while he looks concerned.  Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze) sobbing with regret at who he is, Mrs Farmer, alone not so self assured she has all the answers, looking troubled and uncertain.  Cherita (Jolene Purdy) looks happy, a slight smile at the edge of her mouth content and Frank (James Duval) surrounded by his Halloween act of self expression, reaches for his eye startled but uncertain why.  All collectively experienced together, while alone.

DISCLAIMER CONTAINS SPOILERS – Directorial debut from Richard Kelly who both wrote and directed the film back in 2001.  Music by Michael Andrews, Cinematography by Steven Poster and Editing by Sam Bauer and Eric Strand.  Synopsis – Donnie, an emotionally troubled teenager, cheats death in a bizarre accident and has visions of Frank, a giant rabbit, who informs him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.

Ever stopped to think it’s your vantage point that limits you and you just don’t have the whole picture.  Alone doesn’t mean unconnected, death doesn’t mean gone.  

The Gretchen (Jena Malone) wave at Donnie’s mother and her wave in return, familiarity with no point of reference. This had a profound effect on me, reminds me of Blanche ‘I have always depended on the kindness of strangers” and I so strongly believe if we could keep this at the forefront of our minds, our consideration and kindness for all the other people that inhabit the world, it would be a better place.

I have a pretty open mind, I’m not a rejectionist, I like to explore alternative ideas and I don’t have much time for calls to authority without explanation, my dyslexia brain doesn’t think there is the way, just ways and I’d never wanna pick anyone else’s path, you do you.

I’m going to be honest, I find the concept of time travel quite boring. I’ve been working on radical acceptance for a while and it is really a thought process I’m glad I’ve put effort into but time travel lets all the shoulda woulda coulda’s in.  I enjoy listening to Sam Harris & Alex O’Connor talk about freewill and destiny – I’m running the show or the shows already been written, I’m a flake and I can lean into any of these ideas depending on my mood, I’m an existential, absurdist, nilihilist.I spend most of my time in the middle, it’s just where i’m most comfortable, it seems odd to me anyone is certain of anything, stuff happens and we deal or don’t is my best guess.  I enjoy not having an answer, I think when people think they have the answer, it makes them righteous and I just always wanna be questing, maybe death is the answer and the question is how do we get there and what do we do along the way?

What I love about Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is Kelly’s use of temporal editing. I really enjoy how he speeds up and slows down time, to create a sort of dream-like, at odds somewhat surreal pace to the story.  When you consider the score you think of Gary Jules’ Mad World cover, which to be frank 😉 is truly stunning and evokes a more haunting tone than the original.  You think Joy Division and love tearing us apart, the Killing Moon, Echo & the Bunnymen and Notorious by Duran Duran.  These are all standout tracks that add to the sombre vibe but the standout really is the truly underrated score of Michael Andrews, that bubbles and churns and busters us towards the countdown to zero.  

Donnie Darko feels like film shoegazing to me and it’s possible I may have totally misconstruing this musical genre.  Donnie’s extremes in behaviour and I guess Frank, eliminates the possibility of socializing and instead the gaze is turned inwards, alone with his thoughts on his hero quest of understanding himself.

I don’t know if I felt any more despair as a kid than others, being a kid at school just kinda sucks but I’m not sure that’s a universal experience.  I remember flippantly saying to one of my mum’s friends I think we become an adult when the realization that we are gonna die one day hits us. My Melancholia came when I hit Yr10, all my friends had left school they were years ahead of me, I’d got 4 GCSEs only needed one more to get into college and I felt jaded.  Smarter than many, alone, invisible and waiting for life to begin.  It did, I’m not sure if I get to be Angela or Rayanne in my own version of My so-called Life but I made friends, got a boyfriend and got lost enjoying my hedonistic youth.  I was frankly as morose as Donnie at 15 but I felt I had no voice or power then so simply swallowed it, who was gonna listen anyways.  

I knew I was gonna die, the thought scared me (until I stumbled upon The Sandman and figured I’d happily help Death put the chairs on the table, turn off the lights and take me by the hand to give me what everyone gets a lifetime before death)

I always felt Donnie Darko was a film about belonging or not belonging, finding your place in the world or feeling like an outsider.  I have always been drawn to outsider characters that don’t fit, who march to the beat of their own drum.  

Donnie starts the film lost, he isn’t where he is supposed to be and he doesn’t know why.  He also isn’t overly concerned, he doesn’t want to be helped.  

Donnie Darko is primarily for me a film about the fear of death, the search for God and if not God, the search for meaning or the self.  It wants to hang out in the existential soup and swim around exploring free will, memories, destiny, purpose and being, all the good stuff.

Everything is pulling back to Donnie’s death but we the audience don’t know that, the countdown tells us something will possibly happen but it’s more implied it will be the death of someone else because of Donnie’s actions, not Donnie’s actions leading to his own death.  It is never made clear to me during any viewing that even though Donnie is aware of the concept of time travel and following a path or destiny that he truly understands he can undo everything by being at home when the jet engine crashes into his bedroom ceiling.  His approach to Gretchen’s death does in some ways infer this, as a natural response in this situation would be to call for help but instead he handles it by himself.  

The time travel of the plot and the grandiose nature of Donnie’s relationship with Frank all land in an absurd way for me.  It feels like a mish mash of a dream, that pulls from aspects of life, the unconscious struggling to process.  The line in reference to why Frank is called Frank feels so much more weightened in the cinema.  Frank Jr 2nd is a fairly standard naming tradition in the USA and doesn’t indeed as I thought imply the guardian or keeper of a realm, post or tradition that has been handed down generationally.  I always wanted some Labyrinth-sque mythical quest, to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ into a curious world of strange creatures away from the mundanity of life, still as an adult but especially as a child.  As Frank gives Donnie his missions it all feels like it leads to a greater purpose.  Everyone wants a hero quest, everyone wants to be the hero of their own story.  Donnie is the hero, no fucker will ever know.  His death will just be a tragic accident.  On first watching I loved he died, I love that he died laughing, that meant everything to me.  It wasn’t to be feared.  Watching yesterday I was sad he didn’t get to live, 21 years after it was released the idea of who Donnie would be now, kinda hurt my heart.  The simple notion that it isn’t fair, such a juvenile cry unsettled me.

Standout elements of the film for me 

Cherita Chen, her character I just relate too, I was her at school.  I love her dance, which finishes with the insult ‘get off the Stage Cherita’  no one other than Donnie ever defends her and she is constantly abused and insulted with no provocation. When Donnie tells her things will get better for you, I can relate with a knowing smile, School feels like your life when you are stuck in it and that simply isn’t true.  School so tragically prepares us for nothing in life.

When I last found myself in a school teaching role I truly disliked, in my lower moments of feeling like a prison office, who also happened to be imprisoned myself, I would often fantasize about grabbing my bag, writing cellar door on the board and just leaving without a word.  No one would get it except me but that would be all that really mattered.  Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) embodies everything I think a teacher should be.  I think a teacher should challenge you to think, when I taught A level Film for emotional response we watched American History X and Requiem for a Dream and one year I got 20 A’s in the exam and that’s because I didn’t teach them what to think, I taught them how to think, by challenging them, to do so.  Karen is everything education should be but isn’t.

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.   Visually the slow motion Notorious dance sequence.  You are sitting there wondering if this is overly sexualised or did we sexualise it.  The makeup and hair don’t help leaning into the beauty Queen pageantry, that definitely sits in an uncomfortable place.  Sparkle Motion is fitting in, popularity and the ‘in’ crowd and that’s cool, you do you but (me doing me) it feels vapid, cookie cutter and uninspired, offering nothing new.  I’d rather watch Cherita dance.

The therapist in talking to mum states Donnie’s behaviours are that of a paranoid schizophrenic.    Mary McDonnell’s performance as a mother out of depth and in unfamiliar territory again at a loss, intercut with Donnie bashing on the mirror talking to Frank, does heighten the tension that something bad is coming and her subtle performance is not praised enough, she nailed this role.  McDonnell version of mother has great appeal to me, she doesn’t fuss, fit in or confront.  She, like Donnie, observes, with a sense of disdain for the absurdity of life, she throughout the film is first to be addressed by both the FAA officer and the therapist.  The father isn’t incapable but he is positioned as less in charge.

The Voices – Marjane Satrapi (2014), which again I love conceptually and has parallels to Donnie Darko has such strong visual guidance for displaying Gerry’s psychosis, the initial view and the blurring of the line between reality and medicated life slip away as the film progresses and the viewer is allowed to experience Gerry’s delusional, schizophrenic point of view.  This visual mechanism works so well in Voices and people argue it’s the case for Donnie Darko too but the acts that Donnie undertakes always seemed bombastic moments of destruction but with an understanding not to cause harm. A kinda juvenile view of do no harm but take no shit and set the world on fire.  This isn’t what the film is about for me, I don’t feel trapped in a delusion with him, I feel an exploration of self.

I don’t need the plot to really ever make sense, I always get to the end of a viewing and with confidence think I can explain the narrative to open my mouth and lose it all and that’s really OK with me.  The film is absurd. I don’t need it to make sense and I just like that it tugs at the threads of ideas, there are lots of lines I’m really keen on just as statements.

“If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would only be you and your memories.” – Dr Lillian Thurman

I can only hope that the answers will come to me in my sleep. I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.” – Donnie Darko

“Every creature on this Earth dies alone.”  Roberta Sparrow

This statement used to scare me, it doesn’t anymore.

Memento mori

Remember that you have to die.

No one dies alone, we all die together, for we all die.

Rest in Peace Pops who taught me what strength and acceptance meant in the face of death,  I’ve never been so proud.  In that moment you gave me everything.  I miss you.

CAST – Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) – Elizabeth Darko (Maggie Gyllenhaal) – Rose Darko (Mary McDonnell) – Eddie Darko (Holmes Osborne) – Samantha Darko (Daveigh Chase) – Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone) – Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) – Prof. Kenneth Monnitoff (Noah Wyle) – Frank (James Duval) – Cherita Chen (Jolene Purdy) Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze) – Dr. Lilian Thurman (Katharine Ross)

SIDE NOTE FOR ALL REVIEWS – People say write evergreen content, don’t include pop culture references but I thought about it and that’s dumb.  My review of this film is of the moment, the moment I’m in and tomorrow the world keeps spinning, situations will change and I will have new thoughts and feelings.  I may see things completely differently and that for me, that is the joy of film, finding something new in something already seen.  It’s a different experience every time because I’m different sometimes in huge ginormous ways and sometimes in small seemingly insignificant ways, but I’m always just a little bit different from who I was before.

All images sourced from IMDB.

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