Donnie Darko

During the presidential election of 1988, a teenager named Donnie Darko sleepwalks out of his house one night and sees a giant, demonic-looking rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world will end in 28 days. When Donnie returns home, he finds that a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom. Is Donnie living in a parallel universe, is he suffering from mental illness - or will the world really end?

Donnie Darko is one of those movie's I've heard so much about, yet never got around to seeing it until just recently. After watching it...well, for once I'm not sure exactly sure how I feel about it. It touches on so many subjects, from schizophrenia/mental illness to time travel and alternate dimensions. There's so much to unpack that it'll probably take me watching it multiple times to really understand. What I can say, from the time travel/alternate dimension angle, is whenever I see a movie or tv show have a story involving it I get pretty worried. It's far too easy to tackle such a subject and get so lost in its own ideas that it's almost like a chicken running around with its head cut off. With Donnie Darko, I'm going to have to watch it multiple times before I can determine whether or not that happens here.

As far as everything else, I love practically every role Jake Gyllenhaal takes on, but I believe he's at his best when he takes on these dark, mysterious roles. His best role to date is his turn as an unhinged freelance reporter in Nightcrawler, but for me Donnie Darko is up there among his best. I might have been confused with the rest of the movie, but that is one thing I'm sure of.

I can't really give a true "I recommend it" or "I don't recommend it" just yet, but if you enjoy darker tales, or ones that tackle subjects such as schizophrenia/mental illness or time travel/alternate dimensions, chances are you might like this one.