Donnie Darko

We caught Donnie Darko a week or two ago. I’ve been meaning to write about it since, but kept getting distracted by other things.

Briefly, Donnie Darko is a teenage boy who starts getting visitations from a 6 foot tall, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank. When Frank calls Donnie out of the house one night, a jet engine falls on Donnie’s bedroom. The FAA is mystified, as they had no flights in the area at the time. Then Frank lets Donnie know that there are 28 days left until The End. And it gets better from there.

The film manages to steadfastly avoid typing. It has elements of science fiction, comedy, mystery, coming-of-age, romance, and horror all blended together into an intensely interesting narrative. I haven’t quite figured out all the lose ends, but remarkably, the disparate elements are all pulled together and end up making some sense. It’s still a pretty outre film — probably too much so for a lot of people — but I enjoyed it as much as anything I’ve seen recently. Definitely worth the time if you enjoy unusual cinema.