I like Donnie Darko, but it’s one of those films that I’m not sure I know exactly how to defend.
I did see S. Darko not long ago – a straight to video spinoff involving Donnie’s younger sister. I can tell you categorically that S. Darko is terrible.
Donnie Darko is like a Spielberg movie – as a kid you love it. Then you grow up and can’t figure out what all the fuss was about.
Jake Gyllenhall is the most brilliant actor in the world, and Donnie Darko is a personal achievement.
“Donnie Darko is like a Spielberg movie – as a kid you love it. Then you grow up and can’t figure out what all the fuss was about.”
This should be on the DVD cover. A perfect review.
lol
I still think you could do an awesome seminar on editing with this movie. Just masterful work in that regard.
This kind of threads just make me loose faith in the future.
I saw it as a “kid” and still now I love it in every way.
I’m with you, Jaime.
I understand that Donnie Darko got a lot of buzz when it came out on DVD, and it became kind of the flavor of the month for a while there, but I think it holds up really, really well.
To me, it fits into the same space as Let the Right One In, as a kind of strange, not-quite-sci-fi (well, “fantasy” in the case of LTROI) movie.
I think this is one of the more interesting subgenres to appear lately, actually.
Aaahhh Bolo – You just murdered my face with that Let the Right One In comparison.
The cops are coming for you, son. I don’t care if you are over in Asia. You just killed a dude from California.
I haven’t seen Let The Right One In but I had been interested. Do you agree with the comparison Fredo?
Fredo: Umm, can you explain why the comparison is not apt? It would seem to me that Donnie Darko is sci-fi in low-budget drama’s clothing, in the same way that Let the Right One In is fantasy in low-budget drama’s clothing.
Clarification
This isn’t to say that the movies look the same, or make me feel the same way, or even feel similar in any technical way. Just that they fill a similar space as these films occurring along the boundaries of genre, and confounding the expectations usually associated with those genres.
See, I don’t think of Let the Right One In as a genre flick. In fact, if it wasn’t for this current vampire craze, I wouldn’t even think to mention it as a vampire movie. To me, it’s a love story. It’s a story about two people who are alone – one in the realistic, identifiable way and the other in a more fantastical way. But essentially what it’s about is these two lonely people who find each. This is not a new idea, obviously, but the circumstances and placement of the story is what I find original. And also, I should say Alfredson showed some remarkable cinematic ability – I mean Richard Kelly was no slouch with Darko but I think Alfredson is far and away a treasure to watch. There are certain sequences (and I don’t want to give anything away) that just blew my mind – both in their technique and execution, but also in their placement in STORY, which is very difficult to do.
So no, I don’t really get the comparisons other than on a superficial level they’re both obviously beyond the realistic.
I didn’t think it was terrible, but I don’t understand its becoming a “cult favorite.” To me, it didn’t warrant much more than a “that was kinda neat.”
Awesome, my interest remains.
Fredo: See, I don’t think of Let the Right One In as a genre flick. In fact, if it wasn’t for this current vampire craze, I wouldn’t even think to mention it as a vampire movie. To me, it’s a love story. It’s a story about two people who are alone – one in the realistic, identifiable way and the other in a more fantastical way.
Exactly. It typifies the movie with genre content that is, nonetheless, not really a “genre” movie. I mean, you have to admit that the movie does contain a vampire, and the movie itself kind of works as an “origin” story (particularly because of the ending), i.e. this is the story of how a boy bonds with a vampire girl, and basically becomes her new manservant. But yet it’s not a genre movie at all.
I feel the same way about Donnie Darko, in that it clearly contains genre elements (all this fictionalized gobbledegook about time travel and saving the world from destruction, etc) yet, at the end of the day, it’s basically just about a troubled teenager dealing with the various travails of young adulthood.
I am definitely not trying to compare the two movies on a technical level. They are visually, and mechanically, two different things altogether. I rather enjoy both of them from a technical standpoint, and for different reasons. But I do think that they both toy with genre in similar ways, and in ways that are, ultimately, quite interesting.
No. It has some interesting stuff in it, like the beginning of the age of Prozac, the final days of the Reagan era, and Echo and the Bunnymen’s great song, among others things.
Bolo – Ok, I guess I see what you’re saying. The main thing with me is that the more I watch Let the Right One In the more I like it whereas with Donnie Darko the more I see it the less I like it. And of course if you look at Kelly now, he’s sort of revealed himself to be like the Wachowski’s – one cool idea followed by a string of disasters. This shouldn’t take away from Darko but it certainly is revealing.
Regarding Let the Right One In, in the book it was an origin story. But they cut that out of the movie (no pun intended haha).
Fredo: Well, the end of the movie pretty much reveals it as an “origin” piece. But of course, since so much more time was spent building the relationship between the two characters, it didn’t feel like that was the movie’s primary goal, which it may well have been, had it been put together like a straight-up “vampire” flick.
But yeah, I’m definitely not trying to do a qualitative comparison here. I like both movies for entirely different reasons, and I’m not sure which one I’d say is better, or if I really care to make that distinction (since they’re so different, really).
I just can’t disregard the raw construction of Donnie Darko, which is why I think Kelly still has more quality up his sleeve. Southland Tales was ambitious, and I give it proper credit for being unapologetically weird. Mostly I just love his unwavering focus as a director. When I watched Donnie Darko for the first time, and then found out that there was supposed to be all this intricate sci-fi shit happening, I just didn’t see it at all. But on subsequent viewings (of the original cut, btw, not the director’s cut), it’s pretty incredible to see how Kelly weaves it all into the story in such an unassuming and methodical way. It is just such a stellar construction.
tim
yea