Donnie Darko [DVD]

The titular character of “Donnie Darko” is a troubled teenager who sleepwalks, suffers from apparant schizophrenia, struggles with his familial relations and is beset by visions of a six-foot demonic rabbit. The setting is 1988 and Donnie lives with his sympathetic parents and two sisters; a boy with friends, he is bullied by several school thugs and forms an attraction to a new girl in town, Gretchen. Donnie’s troubles multiply when the giant rabbit, named Frank, summons him from his bed one evening informing him that the world will end in approximately 28 days. Given that when he returns home his bedroom has been crushed by a falling aeroplane engine, Donnie suspects that Frank may be on to something. For the remainder of the film then, Donnie must try to make sense of this prophecy whilst fighting the sinister forces that compel him to commit acts of vandalism. Blending elements of the horror genre and the teenage coming-of-age flick, “Donnie Darko” also covers issues such as parenthood, sibling relationships, young love, time travel, destiny, student-teacher relations, paedophilia, conservatism in school curriculum, psychoanalysis, psychosis and imaginary friends. But “Donnie Darko” is more than just a clever pastiche of genre-awareness scenarios and a hip/clever postmodern appropriation of film-school inspirations; the film surpasses these limitations with a view that is creative, passionate, compelling and defiantly original.