Donnie Darko...

There was a time in our film history when independent film makers really did want to make films so that regular people could see them. They made films that elevated consciousness, asked real questions, or made interesting observations, but for the purpose of exposing the world to art. That trend slowly died off when independent film became it's own business. When film makers stopped thinking they could move on to bigger projects and decided that art house crowds on film festivals were "sure things" for their quirky gems to play for. Now independent film is too independent, and has by and large lost it's relevance to film goers as a whole.

Donnie Darko is a film that can't decide which camp it wants to be in, and suffers for it. That, and the writing sucked.

So there is this kid named Donnie Darko (that's his name...seriously) and he and the Darko family (no kidding, that's their name) live in suburban bliss in the late 80's. Donnie happens to be a paranoid schizophrenic who sleep walks at night and has visions of a giant rabbit that tells him to do things, like flood the school. He goes sleepwalking one night and is told, by the rabbit, that the world will end in 28 days 06 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Then Donnie falls asleep on the golf course where his little vision quest took him. Meanwhile, a jet engine falls off an airplane and crashes into his room. It would have killed him had he been there. Logic would dictate that the impact of the crash from a jet engine that had reached maximum velocity before hitting the house would do slightly more damage than the single bedroom. But if logic played into this movie at all, it would have ended after the opening credits. There's also a plot about school and a motivational speaker...or something...who cares really.

Honestly, this film sounded like it had been written by a fourteen year old who had just gotten out of a semester psychology class. This kid also really liked sci-fi and movies made in the late 80's. He also probably read a lot of philosophy books (or the Cliffs Notes thereof) on his free time. Such is the highly pretentious, pseudo-intellectual drivel we are subjected to here. The characters are laughable caricatures that spout only what the writer wants them to say, only when we wants them to say it. The teachers at his school are some of the worst representations I have ever seen put to film. They don't act or sound any better than the adolescents they're teaching.

The plot is very convoluted and never really resolves anything. It starts out giving you little bits and pieces that you know are supposed to fit together somehow. They don't until the end, and even then some are left behind. The ones that do fit together have been so strained to get there, you almost feel like you need to stretch afterwards to keep from being sore in the morning.

It doesn't work. It doesn't work as a movie that casual movie fans will enjoy because it makes too many hip allusions to movies that only art house crowds or major film geeks would get. Sadly, these same allusions are so tirelessly overdone by amateur film makers that we really don't care anymore.

I really can't see any group that would really latch onto this movie. It's too artsy for casual viewing and it's too pathetic for artistic cred. Maybe if you're an angsty suburbanite kid who thinks you're hot crap because you can quote Nietzsche.