Donnie Darko [Spoiler Country]

[DMgrinder]

Cellar Door

I just watched the movie again, and am still confused. I love the movie, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. "It" being why/how/when he goes back in time and kills himself. Ya, I think you get how much I don't get about the movie.

Any help, or do I have to do what I did with Memento?

[Thray]

This should probably be in media discussions.

At any rate, he used the car.

[The Prince of Cats]

"It" being why/how/when he goes back in time and kills himself
Why: His girlfriend was dead, which made him sad.
How: There was an endless loop going on, he just used it to change reality. How he changed reality, that is the real question...
When: You remember that he knew the exact second that the world ended? That was when...

[Tptmanno1]

I have a theroy that makes sence to me about this movie, which is possibly my favorite movie of all time.
If you watch the directors cut it helps an aweful lot.
Warning a huge amount of spoilers!








I think that when the jet engine crashed through his roof, an alternate reality started, and Donnie was able to bridge that and when he went back, he basically swapped places with the jet engine. and the world ending was the end of the parallel universe. So basically he went to another universe and then came back with the jet engin that killed him.
More is explained, with Frank and everything in the directors cut

[DMgrinder]

I have got to get that directors cut.

[Tptmanno1]

Yes, its much better and makes it much more understandable

[Ruik]

Donnie Darko might be one of the best movies I have ever seen, but the directors cut leaves it for dead - its freaking sweet!

There is a section under the Wikipedia Entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko) where they discuss the directors interpretation, and you can also go to the Official Site (http://www.donniedarko.com/) if you have more patience than I have and try to glean some insight there...

[Closet_Skeleton]

Funny, I understood it perfectly.

Then read that wikipedia article and had no idea what it was saying.

[Tom_Violence]

Am I the only one that found it all a bit uninteresting and not quite living up to its hype?

Yep, thought so. :P

[DMgrinder]

Yes, you are.

[bosssmiley]

Am I the only one that found it all a bit uninteresting and not quite living up to its hype?

Yep, thought so. :P

You are not alone Tom V.

Here is "Donnie Darko", as epitomised by Smiley.

Gilbert Grape goes to Twin Peaks and has small town angsty teen cross-time hallucinations about his divergent pocket reality ending.
Engine falls. Everyone dies! Smiley demands his money back. ::)

Any film that *needs* bonus DVD material and a website to explain what you just saw fails hard.

On the bright side, at least it wasn't as totally meretricious as "Napoleon Dynamite" or any of Shyamalan's last 3 films.

[Tom_Violence]

Any film that *needs* bonus DVD material and a website to explain what you just saw fails hard.

Too right. But the impression I got after watching the film was that they could've just thrown together any old ambiguous nonsense just for the hell of seeing what conclusions people care to draw from it. So the feeling I was left with at the end of it was kind of 'meh, that does nothing for me, and I don't care to try and make up what it might be all about'.

[Mattaeu]

I don't care to try and make up what it might be all about.but...but...Then you can't feel all superior to those that 'don't get it'!! ::)

The movie was indeed 'meh', but seems to have these 'angsty teens' trying to make it into teh b3st cult classic evar.

It's no Evil Dead.

[Zophiel]

At the end of watching Donnie Darko, there was really only one thing I didn't understand: why I bothered sitting through it in the first place. It didn't remind me of a movie so much as bad performance art trying to pass itself off as a genuine existential crisis.

[Tptmanno1]

to each his own I guess...

[Ruik]

but...but...Then you can't feel all superior to those that 'don't get it'!! ::)
but... but... I don't :P

In fact I still only get it in a round about way.

Doesn't mean I don't like the movie... but yeah, to each his own.

[Tom_Violence]

but...but...Then you can't feel all superior to those that 'don't get it'!! ::)

The movie was indeed 'meh', but seems to have these 'angsty teens' trying to make it into teh b3st cult classic evar.

It's no Evil Dead.


Ah, but I do get it. ;) And some sense the film is genius, if only because of the reaction it managed to get.

Stuff happens. More stuff happens. Werid characters turn up and do weird things. Kiddy-porn dungeon. Draw your own conclusions - it saves us the effort of writing any. ;)

Its not that I don't like ambiguous films, for example I really enjoyed Mulholland Drive, but that film had a style to it that engaged me and made me actually want to think about it a little after it had finished. So yeah, at the risk of sounding like a ****ing Art student, Donnie Darko was like a Lynch film but without the essential polish. :P

And yes, I probably am being flippant when I say that it didn't have a real conclusion to it. It may well have done, but they just over-loaded on all the nonsense that any sembalance of sense and interest got lost pretty quickly.

[DMgrinder]

BOO HOO!

I don't get it and yet I want to learn more because I like a movie that isn't so stait forward like Snakes on a Plane (which I'm going to see on friday).