By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * )
This may just be the movie for our times, for these are strange and uncertain days, and this is a strange and uncertain movie about a teenage boy who gets news from the future delivered by a large, crazed rabbit.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars
as Donnie Darko, who appears to live the Middle American dream in a happy home in a leafy suburb in 1988, with a mom straight out of the Brady Bunch (Mary McDonnell), a dad from Happy Days (Holmes Osborne) and a couple of relatively nice and normal sisters. Later in the movie he'll get a girlfriend (Jena Malone).
He's a high school student with ferocious exam results who sometimes forgets to take his medication. When his psychiatrist (Katharine Ross) hypnotises him, she finds out about the rabbit who takes him out at night, sleepwalking. One time when he's away (no Air New Zealand jokes here, please), a 747 engine falls into his bedroom.
The FBI questions the Darko family, which is not surprising because no airline has reported, "One of our engines is missing." Donnie's teachers try to figure him out, especially his English teacher (Drew Barrymore).
When Donnie's rabbit tells him, "The end of the world is nigh," the lad sees strange time-lines in front of his family. He finds that his neighbour, a 100-year-old woman who the kids call Grandma Death, wrote an important book on The Philosophy Of Time Travel.
It sounds like a lot to take in, and in the end it's too much: the ending doesn't deliver. But note the names of Richard Kelly, the first-time writer-director, and Gyllenhaal. They'll go somewhere in the future.
DVD viewers (target demographic for the movie) get plenty of treats. The Philosophy Of Time Travel is a page-by-page look at the book featured in the film. The Art Gallery includes conceptual art as well as promotional material. Cunning Visions is a collection of fake infomercials from the film, and there are 20 deleted scenes with commentaries explaining why they were junked.
* DVD, video rental: February 12
* DVD features: movie (122min); two commentary tracks: (a) director Richard Kelly and Gyllenhaal, (b)
cast and crew including
Barrymore, Ross, McDonnell; special features as described; 20 deleted scenes; trailers; music video (Mad World by Gary Jules), cast and crew info.
Donnie Darko
By EWAN McDONALD
(Herald rating: * * * )
This may just be the movie for our times, for these are strange and uncertain days, and this is a strange and uncertain movie about a teenage boy who gets news from the future delivered by a large, crazed rabbit.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars
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