Donnie Darko Directed by: Richard Kelly DONNIE DARKO, possibly at the top of the list for the first cult film of the new century, finally makes its way to video stores this month. Up until this point, this film festival golden child of 25-year-old director Richard Kelly, a first time director, has been cruising the art house theatre market, but has yet to find a mainstream audience. Like THE CROW and SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION before it, I think DONNIE DARKO's heyday will arrive in the form of VHS and DVD. Any movie that features Patrick Swayze as a motivational speaker, a hilarious five-minute dissertation on Smurfs, and a looming six-foot talking bunny has got to have a large audience just waiting around some where. Over the last few years there have been countless movies set in the time period of the fifties, sixties and seventies for mostly nostalgic reasons. There are a handful of films to date that attempt to tackle the idea of what exactly was going on the 1980s (will we ever know?), but most come off as easily predictable in terms of style and subject matter. DONNIE DARKO takes place a month before the Bush and Dukakis 1988 presidential election, and the first line of the movie, uttered by Donnie Darko's older sister, is "I'm voting for Dukakis," a line of dialogue that sets up the uncompromising standard for the entire movie. Donnie Darko is a weird kid. Played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Donnie is a tall, lanky dark haired high school student that has the appropriate Southern California half-asleep look going on. Donnie suffers from severe cases of sleepwalking and disillusionment, and doesn't seem that put off after waking up after sleeping in the middle of a highway outside of town. His parents seem accustomed to the nightly disappearance act Donnie pulls, watching him glide into the house with bedhead at 10 a.m. Nobody in the family appears that mystified either when an 747 jet engine falls through the roof of Donnie's bedroom one night, landing right on top of the bed that Donnie should be in, but instead he's out sleepwalking around town. When a giant bunny rabbit gives Donnie the exact date and time that the world will end, that makes Donnie concerned. Suddenly a film that one mistakes at first for another stab at dissecting teenage angst becomes the best film to tackle the subject of time travel since BACK TO THE FUTURE.Like the character Donnie, the film loves the idea of weird. Donnie's friends keep their distance, the high school bully has a peculiar way of just being a bully, and Donnie's new girlfriend's very weird past has nothing at all do with the film. Halfway through DONNIE DAKRO people start to morph like the villain in TERMINATOR 2. Patrick Swayze keeps popping up in the film as Jim Cunningham, a motivational speaker that is hell bent on getting people to buy into a "Fear and Love" self help technique that is about as exciting as ROAD HOUSE is romantic. Donnie's youngest sister is involved in a high school dancing outfit that pays tribute to every eighties dance move we would like to forget about, but dance moves this bad never go away. Extended cameos by Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle don't have much resonance, and an obvious homage to E.T comes off as goofy. The ending to DONNIE DAKRO will have most scratching their heads for an answer. Or is it an ending? It isn't really a surprise ending like some may mistake it for, but rather a comment on the first 2/3's of the film. I'm still confused, but I love this movie. When it comes down to it, this mixture of low-budget science fiction bizarre retro trip taking place in a sun drenched, suburban landscape works. Sure, it's over the top, and about 20 minutes and five characters could be taken out of the film. But not many first films as of late are this good. DONNIE DARKO is a film of risks. It's not often that a movie will stop dead in its tracks to transform into the music video that was never made for "Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears. Which brings up another aspect of DONNIE DARKO that I enjoyed, which is the use of music from the 1980s that isn't traditionally associated with the pop culture of the decade. Instead of Madonna or Duran Duran, Richard Kelly inserts Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" over the opening sequence and Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" at a party scene that makes one nostalgic for films like WEIRD SCIENCE and VALLEY GIRL. Cult films, which I'm hoping DONNIE DARKO eventually achieves in status, don't become notorious by recycling material already familiar. It's that one scene in a film you've never experienced, and you'll never see it done again. DONNIE DARKO has these peculiar gems of greatness scattered throughout that makes one forget about the fact that the film they are watching is kind of silly when it comes down to it.
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