Donnie Darko is a film about an alienated teenager being visited by a giant rabbit with a metal head. The rabbit tells him the world will end in about a month, this is the sort of sci-fi fantasy element to the film. However Donnie Darko may actually be a psychotic teenager who is imagining all of this.
The writer/director is Richard Kelly and he appears to have some talent. The film is very well made and edited. However the problem that Kelly gets into is that he seems intent on making a cult film with all the weird stuff he sticks into it. If you remove all the giant rabbit scenes and and the time travel crap, the film is just another alienated teenager story.
The film is pretty well cast with some old 70's and 80's actors like Patrick Swayze and Katherine Ross showing up in small but important parts. Drew Barrymore also isn't too bad as a teacher out of step with the school administration. However the title character of the film played by Jake Gyllenhaal is the usual repressed teenager full of anger and angst which is probably a cliche best abandoned.
Apparently Richard Kelly has a website that further expands the characters and the plot of the film. But if you have to work this hard to explain your film, maybe your approach to telling this story had a few problems in it to begin with.
113 minutes.
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