Donnie Darko Blu-ray Edition
Donnie Darko stars Jack Gyllenhaal as Donald Darko, a trouble youth who sees and hears a man wearing a bunny suit telling him when the world will end.
Film making 18/25
Cinematography 21/25
Audio 22/25
Bonus Features 20/25
Total 81/100
Donnie Darko has a truly stellar cast including Jack Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Mary McDonnell, Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle. Donnie Darko’s nightly visions and sleep walking have put him on medication but he has stopped taking it at the beginning of the film and starts in on previous unusual behavior that makes him start taking his drugs again.
One night he walks out of the house and winds up on a road miles away from home when an airplane engine falls out of the sky right on top of Donnie’s bedroom. If Donnie had been there he would have surely been killed but the man in the bunny suit has told him about the world ending in 28 days which saved his life.
Strangely the FAA and investigators cannot find an airplane that lost an engine and make the parents sign statements that they will not discuss the case. Everyone at school is interested in the accident but Donnie is distant about it and does not talk much with others.
Donnie has a few visions during the next few days and one night takes an axe to the school’s water main and then imbeds the axe into the head of a solid bronze statue. On his way home from the bus stop the day school is cancelled Donnie finds a new girl, Gretchen, played by Jena Malone being accosted by two of the schools bullies.
Donnie tells the three fellow students that school is cancelled and Gretchen asks him to walk her home, on the way they talk and Donnie asks Gretchen if she will go with him. She at first does not understand and Donnie explains he wants her to go out with him and she surprisingly agrees with him.
Donnie continues to have troubling visions and do some really weird stuff, tunnels of fluid come out of people and he follows one to find a gun his father keeps in the closet. When Donnie finds out that a town recluse named Roberta Sparrow has written a book titled The Philosophy of Time Travel he is immediately drawn to her.
Roberta is an old woman who used to teach at the school Donnie now goes to and is widely known for wandering the street where she lives and looking into her mailbox repeatedly. Donnie asks her in a note about her book and if the things she says in it are true because some of them are happening to him.
He figures he has visions of the future regarding certain people and sees one in which he must burn down the house of a local writer and self help guru Jim Cunningham played by Patrick Swayze. Donnie sneaks out of the theatre he is at with Gretchen when she falls asleep and burns down Cunningham’s mansion while he is at one of his seminars.
The next day police have arrested Cunningham when they discover a child pornography stash in his house and evidence of a child porn ring. The teacher who is also coach for the schools dance team arrives at Donnie’s house to ask his mother if she will chaperone the schools dance team.
Donnie’s younger sister is a part of the team and they have been invited to Star Search to perform but the teacher and coach is a fanatic of Cunningham and wants to lead his defense team. Donnie’s mother agrees and they fly out of town to appear on Star Search and later take the Red Eye flight back home.
Donnie’s father is out of town on business and when Donnie hears from his older sister that she was accepted into Harvard Donnie proclaims it time to celebrate. Donnie and his sister throw a party that night which is Halloween and Donnie sees more of the tunnels and follows one.
He tells a couple of friends they have to go out and Donnie, Gretchen and two of Donnie’s friends go to Roberta’s house convinced that these tunnels have something to do with her. At her house the two school bullies are already there and fight Donnie which knocks Gretchen down and a car being driven by Frank, the boyfriend of Donnie’s older sister, runs her over.
Donnie is distraught over Gretchen’s death and carries her body in his car to a hill overlooking the town where he sees those fluid tunnels and strange clouds boil over the town. He then sees the flight his mom and dance team are on flying over the town and the engine from the plane fall off the aircraft.
He races home to meet his fate; being in his room when the engine hits it so all the odd events that have occurred do not happen. He is convinced that all the odd happenings with time travel and the man in the bunny suit are due to his not being in bed and getting killed when the airplane engine hits it.
The scene just before the engine hits the home is a twisted flashing menagerie with the time stamp clearly back to the beginning of the film when the engine hits the house without Donnie in his bed. This time events are different because Donnie does not change his own fate and things are occurring like they are supposed to happen.
The movie ends with the family standing outside their home crying as the coroner moves off with Donnie’s body on a stretcher. Gretchen, who has never met Donnie, is talking to a neighborhood boy about the incident and she says how sad.
Other people are seen in the ending scenes having some vague notion of things occurring but not knowing what or why in a déjà vu sense. Donnie Darko is more a sci-fi thriller than a psychological movie and has plenty of odd twists and a different look at not really time travel but the possibility of changing time as we know it.
The movie is pretty good and I was quite surprised to find out that the film had a very low budget of 4.5 million dollars and was filmed in 28 days. The film was taken on by a production company at the last minute and shown in theatres before a slated direct to DVD release.
Donnie Darko only made $4.1 million in theatre sales but has done well for itself after and is now a sort of cult classic. Donnie Darko has quite a few strong actors and it was quite surprising the film did not do better but with the entertainment industry nothing is really surprising.
The Blu-ray edition has quite a few extras including both the theatrical release and the director’s cut of the film with about twenty minutes of extra footage. There are quite a few commentary tracks on the film from writer/director Richard Kelly, and director Kevin Smith as well as cast and crew commentary on the theatrical version.
The Blu-ray edition comes with a full disc of extras with a production diary, a featurette about the cult that has grown up around the film and a documentary from a fan of the film. For the director’s cut edition that was released in 2004 a contest was held and the winner would have his documentary about them being the number one fan of the film.
This documentary from the self professed number one fan of Donnie Darko has his documentary on the Blu-ray edition as well. There are a lot of extras for fans of the film and plenty of commentary from people who created and starred in the film.
Donnie Darko is an interesting and pretty good thriller with a decided science fiction twist to it that was well worth watching. For fans the Blu-ray edition is a great buy but if you just want to peruse the film a lesser version may be warranted.