BFS presents “Movie Review”
𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗘𝗪-2 (Spoiler Free)✅
🎬Movie: Donnie Darko (2001)
Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy🐉
⏳Duration: 1h 53m
🎭Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore
📽Director: Richard Kelly
IMDb Rating: 8/10

Excerpt: Donnie Darko, an awkward teenager, befriends Frank, a figure in a bunny costume only he can see, who informs Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.
What would you do if someone in your half-remembered dream told you when the world would end? Would you go on with your life? Or would you try to investigate further? If your life is saved by your mental issues, would you be thankful? When life gets too hard, we all want someone to comfort us; someone to hold us when we can no longer bear the pain alone. Perhaps we even find a person who can help us in the way we want.
Donnie Darko is a perfect film for someone who likes a movie that remains unresolved until the very end or likes to think of alternate endings and theories. An ideal movie for someone who loves to overthink their life events and comes up with different scenarios like a dream, as the whole movie can be described as one big dream. You can perfectly do each of these things and more by watching this movie. The perfect blend of Thrill and Mania fits this movie perfectly.
Jake Gyllenhaal’s portrayal of an awkward teenager hits it home. It’s unlikely that one will understand the plot after a single watch. Though the movie makes it easy to follow, some parts can be hard to wrap your head around. Only a second watch can fix it. The special effects used in the movie give you the feeling of a dream in every scene. What is real and what is unreal about Donnie can become hard to distinguish in some sections of the film.
The metaphors in this movie can be utterly subtle and are easily missable. Almost every character and event has a symbolic value in this movie. For example, the sibling structure of the Darkos is a perfect metaphor for human life. The younger sister being a good dancer reflects the latent talents that we sometimes do/don’t get to express in our childhood. The older sister getting into Harvard reflects our dreams and ambitions. And Donnie, the awkward and mentally unstable middle child, only indicates our own life being similar where we want to show off our latent talents but can’t and also try to over-achieve but not being able to for various reasons.
Overall, I would give this movie a solid 8/10. I would have loved to see more proper elaboration on the science that was “explained” or “not explained” in it. There were also a few side plots that remained unresolved in the movie.

• Zakaria Zishan (CE ’21)