What's It All About...Donnie?
Yesterday, when an esteemed colleague of mine, one whose taste and intelligence I trust implicitly, handed me a copy of the film Donnie Darko (2001) and told me to check it out, I did the only thing I really could do in the circumstances.
I sat in my cube and stared blankly at the felt covered walls for another four hours. After the remainder of my paycheck required time was up, I hand scanned out and hurried home as fast as I could. Upon my arrival at my "evening cubicle," I hung up my fedora and stripped off my worn out green micro fiber jacket, making a bee-line to the kitchen. I immediately poured myself a tall Sloe Gin Fizz on the rocks, turned on my X-Box, removed the van Dam DVD that was already in the disc tray and replaced it with Darko. Settling in my rust colored comfy chair, I picked up the remote and pushed the play button.
As the opening credits came on I put my feet up and took a long sip of my beverage, settling in, waiting with anticipation, hoping to experience an old fashioned horror movie and escape reality for a couple of hours.
I got a lot more than I bargained for.
The story is deceptively simple and hopelessly complex at the same time. It is thoroughly satisfying at some points and maddeningly frustrating at others. It is also patently original.
The movie takes place in Virginia in October of 1988. It is about a mildly psychotic teenager named Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) who, in the past, liked to play with fire and burned down an abandoned neighborhood house. Now he takes mood-altering medication, when he feels like it, and sees a psychiatrist once a week. He is obviously intelligent even if he is slightly disturbed.
One night Frank, a large demonic gray rabbit, which only he can see, visits him. The rabbit tells him the world is coming to an end within a month. From that high concept everything else emanates.
Overall, although there is an intricate plot, this is a movie of well-defined characters and strong mood. Most of the scenes take place in the local school, or in Donnie’s house, and is populated with a whole bunch of stereotypes. I spotted a troubled anti-hero, the supportive good looking girlfriend who has an abusive (step)father, the rule obsessed fuddy-duddy principal, a bunch of over achieving cheerleaders, a fat misunderstood sensitive shy girl, the older more responsible sister, the younger mischievous smart aleck sister, the well meaning ineffectual parents, the young caring unconventional teacher and the older out of touch anal retentive teacher, etc. There are so many cliches that not only is there a sadistic bully and a loyal dimwitted sidekick but there are actually two of each.
It is a true testament to the writing and acting that this assortment of stock characters, stereotypes that date back to Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movies of the Great Depression, come off as a realistic group. This is achieved by having them behave not as you always expect.
For example, near the beginning of the movie, in a brilliant exposition scene, the family sits around the dinner table. By the end of this scene the viewer knows several things about the Darko family. They are a relatively happy family that has the usual sibling rivalry that comes from three teen and pre-teen kids. Donnie has a past that neither parent likes to face and he will use it against them like a weapon whenever he feels uncooperative. There are no serious discipline problems nor is there violence at the dinner table as the sister, voting for the first time, respectfully disagrees with her father about presidential politics and a reasonable intelligent conversion ensues. These are smart people.
Watch, during this scene, when Donnie and her older sister Elizabeth (Real life sister Maggie Gyllenhaal) get into a name calling session. Donnie stutters and finally calls her a "fuck bag." How does she react? She giggles and asks, "Did you just call me a fuck bag?" The mother interrupts to "break it up" but Elizabeth is still giggling. Maggie Gyllenhaal is flawless in her reaction. She’s not angry. Her facial expression is amused and dumbfounded, not believing that her brother could not come up with any insult better than the non-sensical "fuck-bag." A pretty typical situation is handled in an unusual way with a strong cast carrying it off. The whole scene ends with the youngest daughter asking "what’s a fuck bag" and everyone having a big laugh.
The cheerleaders, doing sexy dances, instead of being the traditional girls that all the boys are trying to screw, are actually a dance troupe of little kids called Sparkle Motion who are on their way to appear on Ed McMahon’s Star Search. One of the dancers is actually Donnie’s smart aleck little sister.
The young, unconventional teacher, Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore – also credited as executive producer), who is "making a connection" with the kids, has a scene that betrays her true contempt for her students’ passionless apathy. When a new girl, Gretchen, comes into the classroom in the middle of a lesson and informs her she is a new student, Karen tells her to "sit next to the boy who you think is the cutest. You choose."
The boys immediately pose like peacocks while Gretchen walks down the aisle, nervously contemplating where she is going to sit before choosing Donnie. The whole time, Karen stares with glee at the situation she has created. Talk about being incredibly cruel to 16-year-old kids and their raging new found hormones! In any event, Barrymore definitely is not exhibiting typical behavior for her "type."
The only one out of the bunch who pretty much stays the predictable course out is the anal retentive older teacher Kitty Farmer. She is also the coach of the Sparkle Motion dance team. At an emergency PTA meeting, she suggests to ban a book by the author Graham Green because she believes it to be pornographic. When she is asked does she even know whom Graham Green is, she proudly states, "I think we have all seen Bonanza," and returns to her seat triumphantly. She also supplies the punch line in a scene in the principal’s office. When Donnie’s parents, after being called down to the school, ask what their son said, Kitty responds, "I'll tell you what he said. He asked me to forcibly insert the Life Line exercise card into my anus." I don’t mind the caricature because she is good comedy relief.
A truly original character is Jim Cunningham, a local well-respected motivational speaker, portrayed by Patrick Swayze. He is a self-help guru whose system reduces all human behaviors into a "Life Line" that only has two poles, fear and love. His idea for achieving spiritual contentment is for the individual to eliminate fear from their lives and embrace love.
He has an exercise program where people read a hypothetical situation off a pre-printed card, (Such as the classic ethical question if you find a wallet do you return it with the cash still in it?) and then place an "X" on the diagramed Lifeline which is drawn on a chalkboard where they believe their response should be, either closer to "love" or "hate." Of course Donnie sees these exercises as complete bullshit which leads to the scene in the principal’s office I mentioned earlier.
At this time, I have to make a special mention about the performance of Patrick Swayze. I always thought of him as a pretty boy but, as he proves in this movie, he is not a terrible actor after all. Swayze nails the part.
I realize now that he has always been a victim of miscasting. He was a cheesy TV actor, most famously starring in the mini series North and South (1985) who then lucked out with that hackneyed MTV age gibberish Dirty Dancing (1987) and peaked with the totally plot driven Ghost (1990). From these two scores he somehow became A list material when, in reality, he did not belong anywhere near top billing. Consider the "TNT New Classic" Road House (1989), possibly the worst major film ever released to the public in the post studio system era. Swayze’s absurdly bad performance in the lead role contributed immeasurably to that dubious honor.
But as his career rolled along, like so many whom came before him, he started to believe his own press. Probably surrounded by Hollywood phonies, sponging hanger-ons and entourages of yes men, he began to take himself way too seriously. I am thinking specifically of City of Joy (1992) where he plays some kind of humanitarian in some disgusting Indian slum. He probably thought of it as a "serious" project that would ultimately help the poor and starving around the world. See, in his eyes, he thought "the world" would pay attention to the problem of poverty and disease because a "star" of his magnitude deserves to be heard and paid attention to.
What really happened was the critics, and, more importantly, the ticket buying public, thought the "film" was a complete piece of dog shit and it effectively ended his career.
Being in a textbook state of denial, it took him some time to realize that roles were no longer coming his way. The industry turned to the surprising success of lower key "indie" movies starting with the Cannes winning Soderbergh picture "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1989) and sealing the deal with Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). All of a sudden agents starting calling James Spader and debt collectors were on the horn with Swayze. In true Spinal Tap fashion he tried to reinvent, reinvigorate, actually resuscitate, his career with that ridiculous cross dressing Pricilla: Queen of the Desert remake To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). No one bought it and it was back to unreturned phone calls, the unemployment line and quiet desperation.
I was completely surprised when I saw his name on the box but probably not half as surprised as Swayze himself was when his telephone rang that day in 2001 and it wasn’t a utility company demanding money but someone who actually wanted to hire him.
He is excellent as the self-help guru who half the town seems to idolize. Watch the scenes that are supposedly the actual get-well tapes. They look done on the cheap with bad video graphics and terrible acting. "Real" patients offer "real" testimonials of the success of the sure fire methods to contentment the Swayze character is selling. Inter cut with this are shots of Swayze, standing uncomfortably unnaturally posed, saying ludicrously simple axioms in a God like fashion.
Of course the overall credit of the effectiveness of these scenes goes to the director’s (Richard Kelly) complete grasp and understanding of the visual look and tone of these generic late night "infomercials." Anyone who as ever stayed awake past midnight knows you can’t go two clicks of the remote without running into one. I am sure the director has seen a few in his lifetime.
But Swayze deserves a lot of credit too because he does something a little more subtle. In delivering his lines he is thoroughly convincing as one of these snake oil salesman types who are probably charming and charismatic in a live setting but are stunted and affected in front of a TV camera. Remember the story takes place in 1988, which was the dawn of FCC deregulation, and the sophistication of these pitch shows was still in its infancy. It has been said that the hardest role for an actor to perform is one OF a bad actor. It is easy to give a bad performance but quite another to give a GOOD performance of a bad performance.
These are the kind of roles Swayze should stick with. Instead of the romantic or action leading man parts he should play good looking, sleazy con men that perpetually have disingenuous smiles across their faces. Facial expressions which are tools of the trade, used to mask the base shallowness, terrible secrets and character flaws that lurk just below the surface.
To put it another way, in yet another putrid piece of celluloid Next of Kin (1989) Liam Neeson played Swayze’s backwoods hillbilly brother, hell-bent on exacting revenge on some "city slicker" who did their family wrong somehow. Neeson, of course, gets killed for his troubles and what follows is shot after shot of righteous heroics by our hero. If the actors reversed roles back then possibly there would have been no forced hiatus for Swayze and he wouldn’t be in a position where he is scrounging around for scale jobs.
Donnie Darko (2001) uses several techniques to create the eerie atmosphere that permeates the entire picture.
The first one involves sound combined with unusual camera angles whenever the rabbit makes an appearance. He is always shot almost as a prop with the camera starting at full figure and slowly closing in until the rabbit mask is seen in a grotesque close up. Everything he says is in an almost calm soothing monotone coupled with ominous piano chords in the background. The rabbit’s face being a mask, his mouth never moves which also adds to the nightmare like quality. These scenes are further layered by the inter cutting of close ups of Donnie’s face either hypnotized, confused or terrorized. The overall effect is doom and these scenes are the movie’s best.
The second noticeable "trick" is the speeded up and jump cutting of several scenes that take place in the school. Lines of uniformed students file into the school in fast motion with the camera following right behind them. The image slows down here, jumps cuts there, just long enough to focus on one character or another doing something that, out of context, seems hopelessly pathetic. Tears for Fears, or some other 80’s pop band, playing on the soundtrack nicely puts the viewer in the general era but the overall effect creates a feeling of time out of kilter. Normally, I am against such obvious visual manipulation but I liked these scenes anyway. I thought, with its images of rigid conformity and banal activity, they visually conveyed Donnie’s intellectual detachment and alienation.
The third technique, and my personal favorite, are the tittle cards that appear throughout the film. The card has the exact date and how much time is left until the rabbit’s initial prophecy. A typical card reads, "October 20, 1988 – 10 days remain," accompanied by a deep dramatic piano chord. By the end the cards have an hourly countdown. I do not know what the director specifically intended with this clever narrative ploy but they sure worked on me. What a feeling of suspense and dread these cards produce!
But, unfortunately, I can’t stop my critique there. There is simply too much that is either ambiguous or underdeveloped for me to ignore.
For starters, is this rabbit real or just a figure of the protagonist’s mind because he doesn’t take his medication like he is supposed to? The rabbit definitely has an agenda but what is it? The rabbit starts telling him to do bad things that all turn out to benefit Darko or his town greatly. He tells Donnie to leave his house one night and an hour later a plane engine falls through the roof that would have certainly killed him if he was still there. The rabbit then tells him to crack a water main to flood the school building canceling classes which results in a chance meeting with a new girl in town who later becomes his girlfriend. Darko is told to burn the house down of Jim Cunningham, who is in the process of brainwashing the whole town. The speaker’s credibility is destroyed because the fire exposes his involvement in a kiddie porn ring. Is Frank a messenger of God or just the product of Donnie’s schizophrenia?
Religion plays a steady part throughout the story. All the characters seem to accept religion on its own terms even though they veer off the traditional path sometimes. Some, like Kitty Farmer, the "holier than thou" coach of the girls dance team, take to the feel good "new age" philosophy of the Swayze character, while others, like Darko’s psychiatrist (A very aged Katherine Ross) have more of a "medical" view and there are the ones, like Donnie’s physics teacher, who adhere to science and time travel theories. My guess is the writer is a big Kurt Vonnegut fan.
None of these characters seems to question the actual existence of God, just His grand plans or methods. Darko, himself, seems to be a believer. For example, at a school general assembly, Darko publically confronts Jim Cunningham, calling him "The Anti-Christ" receiving scattered applause from some of his fellow teens before being physically expunged from the room. There is a very deliberate scene that is set at a movie theatre. Donnie leaves the theatre and walks past the box office. He is on his way to burn down Swayze’s house because Frank told him to. After Donnie walks out of the frame, the camera lingers for several seconds on the movie marquee that reads "Evil Dead II" right above "The Last Temptation of Christ." I think the director is definitely trying to tell us something. I just don’t know what he is trying to say.
The third element of this hodgepodge ambitious film is "The Philosophy of Time Travel," which is the title of a book written by the local town recluse/weirdo Roberta Sparrow (Patience Cleveland). There are several discussions about "worm holes" "life paths" "planes of existence" and the existence of free will. Donnie even starts seeing physical manifestations of our "destinies" through CGI special effects. Tube shaped, water textured "lifelines" start protruding out of people’s chests which the characters unconsciously follow. Donnie, on the other hand, is very conscious of his "choice of life path" and one time follows it to a closet in his parent’s bedroom where he finds a gun. This gun, of course, plays a huge role in the course of events that unfolds in front of us where Donnie attempts to save his girlfriend from two brutes but ends up killing another kid who turns out to be the rabbit...I’m sorry, does all this sound confusing? It was.
Back to Roberta Savage, the author of the book, who the local kids, including Donnie, call "Grandma Death." She earns this moniker because she is very old, has a wild unkempt appearance and she is seemingly senile. She stands in the middle of the road everyday, pacing back and forth, in front of her dilapidated house, checking and rechecking her empty mail box. One day, after Donnie and his father almost run her down, she pulls Donnie close and whispers in his ear, "All living creatures die alone." Since she doesn’t seem to talk to anybody, and this cryptic statement seems specifically for Donnie, we, both the audience and the main character, find ourselves asking, Is Grandma Death another messenger from God? Is Donnie a prophet?
All of these actions and events are really beside the point because the viewer is not going to get any answers to these and other serious questions the film raises. I think any one who watches it is going to draw his or her own conclusions.
After viewing the film, ask yourself:
I can guess but, on the other hand, why bother? Oh I am sure someone out there has explanations for all these things, and I am sure all these explanations are very plausible. Please feel free to leave comments I would love the discussion. I admit these questions pertain more to the "nuts and bolts" as compared to the more philosophical questions contemplated throughout the viewing. But that’s the whole problem I am having with this picture. My position is simple.
For about an hour and a half the writer (Richard Kelly who also directed) sets up an extremely interesting riddle. He creates scenes of such powerful mood that they border on the transcendental. The acting is subtle and strong. The dialogue has some nice touches that make you take notice that there is a real film going on here. But he has no idea how to end it so, in an attempt to wrap it up, he supplies a mundane explanation for all we had witnessed and then tacks on a totally confusing, unsatisfactory ending giving the impression of some sort of meta-physical conclusion. In other words, I think he bailed on his own convictions.
Mr. Kelly, for three quarters of the film’s running time, is shooting for the stars but, in the last quarter, settles for OK and his unique bold statement remained in his pocket. I can’t believe he wanted "the meaning of life" and "how does it work" type inquiries reduced to drunk driving accidents and secret hideouts. This movie was not a cheap commercial thriller so why mar a possible enlightening experience with plot contrivances that supply cheap quick fixes instead of letting us sort it out for ourselves and possibly learning something in the process? There are no proven answers, at least not yet, for the questions he raises and we all have to find our own answers to these questions anyway, either through faith, thought and/or experience. In my opinion, a better last act would have reflected this fact.
Or maybe it was too esoteric for me and over my head. I don’t know, either way I recommend it.
Sixth Army
I sat in my cube and stared blankly at the felt covered walls for another four hours. After the remainder of my paycheck required time was up, I hand scanned out and hurried home as fast as I could. Upon my arrival at my "evening cubicle," I hung up my fedora and stripped off my worn out green micro fiber jacket, making a bee-line to the kitchen. I immediately poured myself a tall Sloe Gin Fizz on the rocks, turned on my X-Box, removed the van Dam DVD that was already in the disc tray and replaced it with Darko. Settling in my rust colored comfy chair, I picked up the remote and pushed the play button.
As the opening credits came on I put my feet up and took a long sip of my beverage, settling in, waiting with anticipation, hoping to experience an old fashioned horror movie and escape reality for a couple of hours.
I got a lot more than I bargained for.
Disclaimer Alert!!! Plot points revealed.
Jake Gyllenhaal
The story is deceptively simple and hopelessly complex at the same time. It is thoroughly satisfying at some points and maddeningly frustrating at others. It is also patently original.
The movie takes place in Virginia in October of 1988. It is about a mildly psychotic teenager named Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) who, in the past, liked to play with fire and burned down an abandoned neighborhood house. Now he takes mood-altering medication, when he feels like it, and sees a psychiatrist once a week. He is obviously intelligent even if he is slightly disturbed.
One night Frank, a large demonic gray rabbit, which only he can see, visits him. The rabbit tells him the world is coming to an end within a month. From that high concept everything else emanates.
Overall, although there is an intricate plot, this is a movie of well-defined characters and strong mood. Most of the scenes take place in the local school, or in Donnie’s house, and is populated with a whole bunch of stereotypes. I spotted a troubled anti-hero, the supportive good looking girlfriend who has an abusive (step)father, the rule obsessed fuddy-duddy principal, a bunch of over achieving cheerleaders, a fat misunderstood sensitive shy girl, the older more responsible sister, the younger mischievous smart aleck sister, the well meaning ineffectual parents, the young caring unconventional teacher and the older out of touch anal retentive teacher, etc. There are so many cliches that not only is there a sadistic bully and a loyal dimwitted sidekick but there are actually two of each.
It is a true testament to the writing and acting that this assortment of stock characters, stereotypes that date back to Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney movies of the Great Depression, come off as a realistic group. This is achieved by having them behave not as you always expect.
For example, near the beginning of the movie, in a brilliant exposition scene, the family sits around the dinner table. By the end of this scene the viewer knows several things about the Darko family. They are a relatively happy family that has the usual sibling rivalry that comes from three teen and pre-teen kids. Donnie has a past that neither parent likes to face and he will use it against them like a weapon whenever he feels uncooperative. There are no serious discipline problems nor is there violence at the dinner table as the sister, voting for the first time, respectfully disagrees with her father about presidential politics and a reasonable intelligent conversion ensues. These are smart people.
Watch, during this scene, when Donnie and her older sister Elizabeth (Real life sister Maggie Gyllenhaal) get into a name calling session. Donnie stutters and finally calls her a "fuck bag." How does she react? She giggles and asks, "Did you just call me a fuck bag?" The mother interrupts to "break it up" but Elizabeth is still giggling. Maggie Gyllenhaal is flawless in her reaction. She’s not angry. Her facial expression is amused and dumbfounded, not believing that her brother could not come up with any insult better than the non-sensical "fuck-bag." A pretty typical situation is handled in an unusual way with a strong cast carrying it off. The whole scene ends with the youngest daughter asking "what’s a fuck bag" and everyone having a big laugh.
The cheerleaders, doing sexy dances, instead of being the traditional girls that all the boys are trying to screw, are actually a dance troupe of little kids called Sparkle Motion who are on their way to appear on Ed McMahon’s Star Search. One of the dancers is actually Donnie’s smart aleck little sister.
The young, unconventional teacher, Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore – also credited as executive producer), who is "making a connection" with the kids, has a scene that betrays her true contempt for her students’ passionless apathy. When a new girl, Gretchen, comes into the classroom in the middle of a lesson and informs her she is a new student, Karen tells her to "sit next to the boy who you think is the cutest. You choose."
The boys immediately pose like peacocks while Gretchen walks down the aisle, nervously contemplating where she is going to sit before choosing Donnie. The whole time, Karen stares with glee at the situation she has created. Talk about being incredibly cruel to 16-year-old kids and their raging new found hormones! In any event, Barrymore definitely is not exhibiting typical behavior for her "type."
The only one out of the bunch who pretty much stays the predictable course out is the anal retentive older teacher Kitty Farmer. She is also the coach of the Sparkle Motion dance team. At an emergency PTA meeting, she suggests to ban a book by the author Graham Green because she believes it to be pornographic. When she is asked does she even know whom Graham Green is, she proudly states, "I think we have all seen Bonanza," and returns to her seat triumphantly. She also supplies the punch line in a scene in the principal’s office. When Donnie’s parents, after being called down to the school, ask what their son said, Kitty responds, "I'll tell you what he said. He asked me to forcibly insert the Life Line exercise card into my anus." I don’t mind the caricature because she is good comedy relief.
A truly original character is Jim Cunningham, a local well-respected motivational speaker, portrayed by Patrick Swayze. He is a self-help guru whose system reduces all human behaviors into a "Life Line" that only has two poles, fear and love. His idea for achieving spiritual contentment is for the individual to eliminate fear from their lives and embrace love.
He has an exercise program where people read a hypothetical situation off a pre-printed card, (Such as the classic ethical question if you find a wallet do you return it with the cash still in it?) and then place an "X" on the diagramed Lifeline which is drawn on a chalkboard where they believe their response should be, either closer to "love" or "hate." Of course Donnie sees these exercises as complete bullshit which leads to the scene in the principal’s office I mentioned earlier.
At this time, I have to make a special mention about the performance of Patrick Swayze. I always thought of him as a pretty boy but, as he proves in this movie, he is not a terrible actor after all. Swayze nails the part.
Crawling his way out of the gutter
I realize now that he has always been a victim of miscasting. He was a cheesy TV actor, most famously starring in the mini series North and South (1985) who then lucked out with that hackneyed MTV age gibberish Dirty Dancing (1987) and peaked with the totally plot driven Ghost (1990). From these two scores he somehow became A list material when, in reality, he did not belong anywhere near top billing. Consider the "TNT New Classic" Road House (1989), possibly the worst major film ever released to the public in the post studio system era. Swayze’s absurdly bad performance in the lead role contributed immeasurably to that dubious honor.
But as his career rolled along, like so many whom came before him, he started to believe his own press. Probably surrounded by Hollywood phonies, sponging hanger-ons and entourages of yes men, he began to take himself way too seriously. I am thinking specifically of City of Joy (1992) where he plays some kind of humanitarian in some disgusting Indian slum. He probably thought of it as a "serious" project that would ultimately help the poor and starving around the world. See, in his eyes, he thought "the world" would pay attention to the problem of poverty and disease because a "star" of his magnitude deserves to be heard and paid attention to.
What really happened was the critics, and, more importantly, the ticket buying public, thought the "film" was a complete piece of dog shit and it effectively ended his career.
Being in a textbook state of denial, it took him some time to realize that roles were no longer coming his way. The industry turned to the surprising success of lower key "indie" movies starting with the Cannes winning Soderbergh picture "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (1989) and sealing the deal with Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). All of a sudden agents starting calling James Spader and debt collectors were on the horn with Swayze. In true Spinal Tap fashion he tried to reinvent, reinvigorate, actually resuscitate, his career with that ridiculous cross dressing Pricilla: Queen of the Desert remake To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995). No one bought it and it was back to unreturned phone calls, the unemployment line and quiet desperation.
I was completely surprised when I saw his name on the box but probably not half as surprised as Swayze himself was when his telephone rang that day in 2001 and it wasn’t a utility company demanding money but someone who actually wanted to hire him.
He is excellent as the self-help guru who half the town seems to idolize. Watch the scenes that are supposedly the actual get-well tapes. They look done on the cheap with bad video graphics and terrible acting. "Real" patients offer "real" testimonials of the success of the sure fire methods to contentment the Swayze character is selling. Inter cut with this are shots of Swayze, standing uncomfortably unnaturally posed, saying ludicrously simple axioms in a God like fashion.
Of course the overall credit of the effectiveness of these scenes goes to the director’s (Richard Kelly) complete grasp and understanding of the visual look and tone of these generic late night "infomercials." Anyone who as ever stayed awake past midnight knows you can’t go two clicks of the remote without running into one. I am sure the director has seen a few in his lifetime.
But Swayze deserves a lot of credit too because he does something a little more subtle. In delivering his lines he is thoroughly convincing as one of these snake oil salesman types who are probably charming and charismatic in a live setting but are stunted and affected in front of a TV camera. Remember the story takes place in 1988, which was the dawn of FCC deregulation, and the sophistication of these pitch shows was still in its infancy. It has been said that the hardest role for an actor to perform is one OF a bad actor. It is easy to give a bad performance but quite another to give a GOOD performance of a bad performance.
These are the kind of roles Swayze should stick with. Instead of the romantic or action leading man parts he should play good looking, sleazy con men that perpetually have disingenuous smiles across their faces. Facial expressions which are tools of the trade, used to mask the base shallowness, terrible secrets and character flaws that lurk just below the surface.
To put it another way, in yet another putrid piece of celluloid Next of Kin (1989) Liam Neeson played Swayze’s backwoods hillbilly brother, hell-bent on exacting revenge on some "city slicker" who did their family wrong somehow. Neeson, of course, gets killed for his troubles and what follows is shot after shot of righteous heroics by our hero. If the actors reversed roles back then possibly there would have been no forced hiatus for Swayze and he wouldn’t be in a position where he is scrounging around for scale jobs.
Donnie Darko (2001) uses several techniques to create the eerie atmosphere that permeates the entire picture.
A typically disturbing scene
The first one involves sound combined with unusual camera angles whenever the rabbit makes an appearance. He is always shot almost as a prop with the camera starting at full figure and slowly closing in until the rabbit mask is seen in a grotesque close up. Everything he says is in an almost calm soothing monotone coupled with ominous piano chords in the background. The rabbit’s face being a mask, his mouth never moves which also adds to the nightmare like quality. These scenes are further layered by the inter cutting of close ups of Donnie’s face either hypnotized, confused or terrorized. The overall effect is doom and these scenes are the movie’s best.
The second noticeable "trick" is the speeded up and jump cutting of several scenes that take place in the school. Lines of uniformed students file into the school in fast motion with the camera following right behind them. The image slows down here, jumps cuts there, just long enough to focus on one character or another doing something that, out of context, seems hopelessly pathetic. Tears for Fears, or some other 80’s pop band, playing on the soundtrack nicely puts the viewer in the general era but the overall effect creates a feeling of time out of kilter. Normally, I am against such obvious visual manipulation but I liked these scenes anyway. I thought, with its images of rigid conformity and banal activity, they visually conveyed Donnie’s intellectual detachment and alienation.
The third technique, and my personal favorite, are the tittle cards that appear throughout the film. The card has the exact date and how much time is left until the rabbit’s initial prophecy. A typical card reads, "October 20, 1988 – 10 days remain," accompanied by a deep dramatic piano chord. By the end the cards have an hourly countdown. I do not know what the director specifically intended with this clever narrative ploy but they sure worked on me. What a feeling of suspense and dread these cards produce!
But, unfortunately, I can’t stop my critique there. There is simply too much that is either ambiguous or underdeveloped for me to ignore.
For starters, is this rabbit real or just a figure of the protagonist’s mind because he doesn’t take his medication like he is supposed to? The rabbit definitely has an agenda but what is it? The rabbit starts telling him to do bad things that all turn out to benefit Darko or his town greatly. He tells Donnie to leave his house one night and an hour later a plane engine falls through the roof that would have certainly killed him if he was still there. The rabbit then tells him to crack a water main to flood the school building canceling classes which results in a chance meeting with a new girl in town who later becomes his girlfriend. Darko is told to burn the house down of Jim Cunningham, who is in the process of brainwashing the whole town. The speaker’s credibility is destroyed because the fire exposes his involvement in a kiddie porn ring. Is Frank a messenger of God or just the product of Donnie’s schizophrenia?
Religion plays a steady part throughout the story. All the characters seem to accept religion on its own terms even though they veer off the traditional path sometimes. Some, like Kitty Farmer, the "holier than thou" coach of the girls dance team, take to the feel good "new age" philosophy of the Swayze character, while others, like Darko’s psychiatrist (A very aged Katherine Ross) have more of a "medical" view and there are the ones, like Donnie’s physics teacher, who adhere to science and time travel theories. My guess is the writer is a big Kurt Vonnegut fan.
None of these characters seems to question the actual existence of God, just His grand plans or methods. Darko, himself, seems to be a believer. For example, at a school general assembly, Darko publically confronts Jim Cunningham, calling him "The Anti-Christ" receiving scattered applause from some of his fellow teens before being physically expunged from the room. There is a very deliberate scene that is set at a movie theatre. Donnie leaves the theatre and walks past the box office. He is on his way to burn down Swayze’s house because Frank told him to. After Donnie walks out of the frame, the camera lingers for several seconds on the movie marquee that reads "Evil Dead II" right above "The Last Temptation of Christ." I think the director is definitely trying to tell us something. I just don’t know what he is trying to say.
The third element of this hodgepodge ambitious film is "The Philosophy of Time Travel," which is the title of a book written by the local town recluse/weirdo Roberta Sparrow (Patience Cleveland). There are several discussions about "worm holes" "life paths" "planes of existence" and the existence of free will. Donnie even starts seeing physical manifestations of our "destinies" through CGI special effects. Tube shaped, water textured "lifelines" start protruding out of people’s chests which the characters unconsciously follow. Donnie, on the other hand, is very conscious of his "choice of life path" and one time follows it to a closet in his parent’s bedroom where he finds a gun. This gun, of course, plays a huge role in the course of events that unfolds in front of us where Donnie attempts to save his girlfriend from two brutes but ends up killing another kid who turns out to be the rabbit...I’m sorry, does all this sound confusing? It was.
Back to Roberta Savage, the author of the book, who the local kids, including Donnie, call "Grandma Death." She earns this moniker because she is very old, has a wild unkempt appearance and she is seemingly senile. She stands in the middle of the road everyday, pacing back and forth, in front of her dilapidated house, checking and rechecking her empty mail box. One day, after Donnie and his father almost run her down, she pulls Donnie close and whispers in his ear, "All living creatures die alone." Since she doesn’t seem to talk to anybody, and this cryptic statement seems specifically for Donnie, we, both the audience and the main character, find ourselves asking, Is Grandma Death another messenger from God? Is Donnie a prophet?
All of these actions and events are really beside the point because the viewer is not going to get any answers to these and other serious questions the film raises. I think any one who watches it is going to draw his or her own conclusions.
After viewing the film, ask yourself:
Does Donnie willingly go back in time to save his girlfriend and by doing so emotionally destroy his family with his own death?
If the mysterious plane engine that fell through the roof of the Darko residence the first time, whose ID or flight number was unknown even to the FAA officials, turns out to be the plane his mother was on the second time, how is Donnie’s mother in the house when it happens for a third time?
Donnie writes a letter to Grandma Death from "the future" which is dramatically read in voice over near the end of the movie while we visually see time go backwards. What do these words and images mean?
It turns out the rabbit is a kid named Frank in a Halloween costume. He runs over and kills Donnie’s girlfriend and then, in turn, is shot and killed by Donnie on the day "the world is coming to an end." Why is he helping Donnie out by giving him the "inside information" on one’s lifeline of destiny? A lifeline, I might add, that leads directly to his own death?
For that matter how does Frank manage his "quantum leap?" Didn’t he die?
Why does Donnie laugh knowing his own death is approaching in a matter of minutes? Is it because he is proud at "proving himself right" by successfully leaping to alter history? Is it the triumph of overcoming his own fear and finally accepting Grandma Death’s proclamation about "dying alone?"
Did any of the previous events happen at all?
I can guess but, on the other hand, why bother? Oh I am sure someone out there has explanations for all these things, and I am sure all these explanations are very plausible. Please feel free to leave comments I would love the discussion. I admit these questions pertain more to the "nuts and bolts" as compared to the more philosophical questions contemplated throughout the viewing. But that’s the whole problem I am having with this picture. My position is simple.
For about an hour and a half the writer (Richard Kelly who also directed) sets up an extremely interesting riddle. He creates scenes of such powerful mood that they border on the transcendental. The acting is subtle and strong. The dialogue has some nice touches that make you take notice that there is a real film going on here. But he has no idea how to end it so, in an attempt to wrap it up, he supplies a mundane explanation for all we had witnessed and then tacks on a totally confusing, unsatisfactory ending giving the impression of some sort of meta-physical conclusion. In other words, I think he bailed on his own convictions.
Mr. Kelly, for three quarters of the film’s running time, is shooting for the stars but, in the last quarter, settles for OK and his unique bold statement remained in his pocket. I can’t believe he wanted "the meaning of life" and "how does it work" type inquiries reduced to drunk driving accidents and secret hideouts. This movie was not a cheap commercial thriller so why mar a possible enlightening experience with plot contrivances that supply cheap quick fixes instead of letting us sort it out for ourselves and possibly learning something in the process? There are no proven answers, at least not yet, for the questions he raises and we all have to find our own answers to these questions anyway, either through faith, thought and/or experience. In my opinion, a better last act would have reflected this fact.
Or maybe it was too esoteric for me and over my head. I don’t know, either way I recommend it.
Sixth Army
posted by Larry B | 11:35 PM
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