So, I'm walking out of the Majestic theater after seeing \Donnie Darko"" with my friend, Sean, when a woman with a pleasantly raspy smoker's voice overhears us discussing the movie and stops us to tell us a funny story. Apparently, she was in town with ""The Sunshine Boys,"" starring Dick Van Patten and Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler on the Batman Show. That's enough for a story right there, but it gets better.
This woman had looked for a movie on her day off, and, through a series of misdirected phone calls and conversations, had taken the shuttle from the Hilton first to the Orpheum and then the Majestic. As a result, she ended up walking in on ""Donnie Darko"" late. What made her really confused about the whole thing is that she had thought she was walking into ""Mulholland Drive."" Now, see, almost none of you think that's strange at all, because you've never heard of ""Donnie Darko,"" but that woman, who was staying for the showing of ""Mulholland Drive"" directly after, was up for a damn cool double feature.
""Donnie Darko"" is the first feature of writer/director Richard Kelly and hit Sundance over a year ago. It's gotten very little press, despite carrying names like Drew Barrymore, Noah Wiley and yes, Patrick Swayze. The story takes place at the end of the Reagan era in October of 1988, though it does not pander to '80s nostalgia like so many movies and TV shows. It takes place in a wealthy, unexaggerated suburb with private schools, bullies and self-help fanatics. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie, a 16-year-old coming of age and openly questioning the hypocrisy of his teachers and the sexuality of the Smurfs.
""Donnie Darko"" is also a complex psycho-thriller, in which Donnie's schizophrenic hallucinations predict a coming end of the world involving time travel and a guy named Frank. Frank wears a bunny suit with a deformed metal mask, and he calls Donnie out of his house just minutes before a fallen jet engine crashes into his room. From then on, Frank reappears, making Donnie commit acts of vandalism and arson, while Donnie tries to figure out hazy theories of time travel and avoiding fate.
""Donnie Darko"" brings up interesting questions about its protagonist. Is he simply falling deeper and deeper into schizophrenia? What about the predictive powers his visions seem to have? Will he lose control and become dangerous? The movie is intense in some ways and casually fun in others. At one moment Donnie is a teen superhero, breaking the monotony of a school-enforced self-help seminar. In the next, he's the keystone in impending disaster befalling his family and friends. Kelly ties the whole thing together with exquisite visuals and deft storytelling, despite some questionably quick exposition.
So, this nice woman, who was probably freaked out enough already from travelling through Iowa with Frank Gorshin, was up for a very strange and unexpected double feature that night. It probably didn't help any that Sean and I turned into giant talking tortoises sucked up into a black funnel cloud instead of saying goodbye.
I highly recommend seeing ""Donnie Darko,"" especially if you liked ""Mulholland Drive."" Heck, go seem them together. Then, see them again stoned. And, then, as long as you're high, totally rent the ""Moulin Rouge"" DVD and sit really close to the screen. Then try putting chili in tortilla shells; it's really good.
