Scooter Chronicles

On Sunday afternoon, Marcia and I watched the movie “Donnie Darko”, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, and co-starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Mary McDonnell, Daveigh Chase, James Duval, Patrick Swayze, Beth Grant, Jena Malone, David Moreland, Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore, Patience Cleveland, Katharine Ross, and a brief part by Seth Rogen. I listed everyone that is rather well known, mostly because we were surprised to see all of these actors and actresses.

The movie is one of the strangest and most unique movies I have seen in a long time. It is hard to classify the movie into one genre (take note, David). Jake Gyllenhaal is Donnie Darko, who is a paranoid schizophrenic and a bit of an anti-social high school teenager. One night he starts to hear a voice telling him to follow. It turns out to be Frank (Duval), a giant, demonic looking fuzzy bunny. Frank tells Donnie the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up on the green of a hole at the local country club and comes home to find that a jet engine that hasn’t been able to be traced to any plane has crashed through his bedroom. Already seeing a therapist (Ross), Donnie starts to investigate other strange occurrences with the help of one of his teachers (Wyle) and a book that this teacher gives him about time travel, written by a former nun and local senile woman nicknamed “Grandma Death” (Cleveland). In the meantime, Frank instructs Donnie to make violent acts. Donnie also starts to see Gretchen (Malone) who has recently moved to the area. As things start to come together, Donnie realizes what choices he has, and what fate they will lead to.

Gyllenhaal showed great poise for playing such a part. There is so much to his character, a very complex part, and he pulls everything together so very well. This was essentially the second major film in his career showing his talents early. It’s a shame that it took me so long to finally see it. I saw a blurb on IMDB saying that Jason Schwartzman was originally cast for Donnie. I frankly couldn’t see him pulling it off as well.

The way everything is weaved together throughout the film gives it quite a classic feel. At times it is hard not to laugh out loud. Other times scenes leave you thinking, “What the hell just happened?” There are a few times where two scenes are being played out in unison, shots alternating between the two, and there is a vast difference between the scenes. One can be humorous or joyful, while the other is usually one of Donnie’s violent acts.

There are elements of horror and psychological thriller to this movie. At times it has science fiction elements. All kinds of humor is brought it, too. It’s an incredibly well through out movie. All the characters are real. All the actors and actresses playing them brought in good to fantastic performances. As I said once already, it has to be one of the most unique films I have ever seen.