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Zone's Eye View of "Donnie Darko" |
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Synopsis of movie: Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an ordinary high-school kid, except for his strange visions, including one about a bloody, 6-foot-tall, rabbit-costumed guy who is missing an eye. Then Donnie barely lives through a freak accident and is given 28 days before he must relive it. Now for The Zone's Eye View By Laura Alber Imagine Holden Caulfield on acid. That would be a good way to begin describing this incredibly well written and performed Independent Movie. Writer-Director Richard Kelly doesn’t just “show” us a movie about a troubled kid; he actually takes us on the journey with him. We go deep inside the mind of troubled youth, Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is, just as Caulfield, overly intelligent, over analytical, kind of an outcast, rebellious and opinionated. This is just the outer layer of Donnie Darko; inside we have the makings of a true schizophrenic who is obsessed with Stephen Hawking's theories on time travel. The opening scene gives you the impression that Donnie’s problems do not come from a lack of family values or love, if anything there’s an abundance of that in his life with his family. It is this scene when his sister blurts out at the kitchen table that Donnie’s not taking his medication anymore. Right away letting us know, this is a kid with some deep-set problems. His mother, Rose Darko (Mary McDonnell-‘Dances with Wolves’) shows a genuine concern and begs Donnie to take his medicine and see his therapist right away. We still aren’t sure at this point where Richard Kelly wants to take us with this story, and then it hits us! Donnie has what everyone believes to be a sleepwalking problem, always waking up outside somewhere. One particular day, he wakes up on the golf course where a neighbor recognizes him and sends him on his way home. The neighbor is accompanied by Patrick Swayze, who blows us away by portraying a ‘self-help guru’ and basically brainwashes people into believing his theories. He re-enters later in the film. What ‘we’ see is not Donnie sleepwalking onto the golf course, but being awakened by a voice telling him to follow. Once outside, we meet Donnie’s new friend “Frank”, an oversized gruesome toothy looking rabbit. Frank calls Donnie out to tell
him the world will end, and proceeds to tell him when. It will happen in 28 days. Halloween. When Donnie wakes up and is heading home, he finds fire trucks and police surrounding his house. It seems that a jet engine fell from the sky and slammed right into the house, right into Donnie’s room, where he would have been. Everyone is ok, and spends the night in a hotel while the FAA repair the damage and ‘attempt’ to find the plane that lost this engine. At school Donnie is somewhat of an outcast, but it doesn’t seem to bother him. He becomes quite the celebrity after being on the news after the accident, but wards off the people and goes on with his quiet life. He has two teachers he really likes, one being Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) an English teacher, and Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff (Noah Wyle). He speaks to Dr. Monnitoff on his time travel theories until they get too in depth and Monnitoff tells him he can’t talk about it anymore. Strange things begin to happen in the quite town of Middlesex. A water main is destroyed, flooding the school and school is cancelled for the day. A fire burns down a house, an axe is implanted in the schools mascot-a brass squatting Pit Bull. There are special effects that will astound you for being an Independent movie. As for the plot, there is just too much detail to go into everything, and it is too fun to try and figure out without someone blurting out all the answers! (Not that I have them all. I’m going to have to watch this one again for sure!) Donnie Darko is an apocalyptic type movie with such surreal and supernatural events that it is hard not to watch, and yet sometime too scary to watch. The countdown continues throughout the 28 days, and all the while we go on the journey with Donnie, hallucinations and all. Between Donnie Darko and Memento, Hollywood should watch out. The Independents are coming with a vengeance! This much you can tell from the Oscar nominees this year. Darko could have definitely been a contender for best film, as Memento SHOULD have been. But, that’s just an awards show, we can be entertained by these new geniuses anytime we want now, just pop that DVD or Video in and enjoy! Darko gets a 9 from the Zone. A definite trip that I want to take again and again.
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