Meet Donnie Darko, Christ Figure of the Month for October 1988

In the beginning there is light. Specifically, the light of a crisp October dawn in Virginia (how do we know it's Virginia? I only found this out from bilavideo's review), where Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhall) has awakened after another night of sleepwalking. Donnie is the middle child in a family of three, the youngest being 5 years younger than him and the eldest no more than 2 years older. His father (Holmes Osborne) is a gruff Republican who loves to debate the merits of Bush the Elder and Dukakis across the dinner table with his feisty sister (the star's real life sister Maggie).

All of a sudden Donnie has a big problem. Specifically, he finds out through a communication from a 6-foot-high bunny rabbit named Frank that neither of his immediate family members will get to vote for the candidate of their choice, unless Virginia allowed early voting in 1988, which I don't think they did. Even then, their votes won't count. The reason is that the world is going to end around dawn (Eastern Standard Time) on October 30, 1988.

Now if I had become aware of this (and I was 16, the same age as Donnie, in '88) I would have tried to inform the candidates (and probably Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev) so that the three members of this group who had access to the Button, all stayed a discreet distance away from it on that day. Up until the fall of the Wall, I always believed the world would end in nuclear fire, and today, after the end of a dozen-year golden age for our country on 9/11, I believe it again. Like Donnie, I was seeing a psychiatrist in 1988, so it's likely the FBI would have spoken to my psychiatrist; but in speaking to Donnie's they would have discovered that he is already suspected of at least one arson.

Further communications from Frank lead to Donnie being suspected (and in fact guilty) of a couple other high-profile destructions of property. Donnie obeys Frank's instructions even though he hates Frank; he tries knifing him in the eye in one scene, but is stopped by some invisible barrier. Later it's discovered that Donnie apparently succeeded in injuring Frank's eye. Or is it that he will succeed in the future? Frank is, after all, a time traveler, which in itself makes no sense to Donnie or the audience, unless bunny rabbits evolved after the fall of man to become the dominant species.

At this point viewers familiar with the sci-fi of the '60's and '70's expect to see the movie end with Donnie walking through the ruined monuments of Washington, D. C. screaming, "You maniacs, you blew it up!" shortly after Grandma Death (actress' name forgotten) tells him the Capitol belongs to the people. To his credit, writer Richard Kelly decided not to rip off either of the classics I just referenced but came up instead with an original ending -- except that the central idea isn't really original. In fact, ripping off Planet of the Apes and/or Logan's Run would have been more honest than what he did.

Specifically, Donnie discovers a book called "The Philosophy of Time Travel" written by Grandma Death when she was a brilliant metaphysician. He discovers conceptual categories into which he can fit his experiences. Then Frank, of all people, tells him to write Grandma Death a letter, if only to give her existence meaning (all she ever does is walk back and forth to her mailbox, which is always empty, and whisper bizarre philosophical statements to Donnie). Donnie has to choose between being the Living Receiver and the Manipulated Dead of his particular Tangent Universe. He winds up being both, but in different universes.

"Donnie Darko" is one of those movies that I find I love and hate at the same time. It's fun on one level, yet pretentious and ultimately heavy-handed (should we all make the same choice Donnie does, given the opportunity?) on another. This is actually fairly rare (although War of the Worlds was one such), and leaves me in a quandary as to what to rate it. I have decided to give it three stars because I haven't written a three-star review in eleven months, since I saw Alexander.

Unlike "Alexander," however, I give this one a negative recommendation. The flaws are rather pronounced. Just to give you a for-instance, I honestly would have preferred to see Jake discovering that Frank really is a mutant rabbit from the post-human future, to what the script gives us [namely he is a victim of Jake's need to kill somebody after his girlfriend Gretchen (Jena Malone) is killed]. I have been informed by a fellow 3L (the most trustworthy source on pop-culture questions) that the theatrical version of "Donnie Darko" ended the same way, so I have to part company with bilavideo on his claim that the director's cut is a step down from the version released in 2001.