Flashback Summer (Fall) Vol. 4: Donnie Darko

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

It probably would’ve made more sense for me to write a post about Donnie Darko during October instead of the day after Halloween, but it also would’ve made more sense for all of my Flashback Summer posts to actually happen during the summer. But writing this post late meant that I got to finish Donnie Darko on Halloween night, which felt very pleasant and cozy…despite the fact that this isn’t really a pleasant or cozy film. This is a film suffused with dread, which actually might make it perfect for this moment. But first, some backstory.

I can’t remember the first time I saw Donnie Darko, but it was definitely on DVD and not in theaters. I know this because it came out in October of 2001, when I couldn’t yet drive and my parents were definitely not taking me to an R rated movie. Also, not a lot of people saw this movie in theaters…again, it came out in October of 2001. The viewing public wasn’t in the mood for a dark, confusing fever dream of a movie, especially not one where part of a plane mysteriously falls out of the sky. According to Wikipedia, the film flopped at the box office and only gained popularity when it hit home video…which is when I saw it, at some point between 2002-2004, probably in my friend Chad’s basement.

If you aren’t familiar with Donnie Darko (if you weren’t a moody teenager in the 2000s), you should know that it’s a time travel movie. Criterion Channel included it in their High School Horror collection and I watched a trailer that definitely pushed it as a scary movie, but in reality it’s more science fiction. But, as is the case with many movies that initially struggle to find an audience, it doesn’t fit squarely into any genre. It’s sort of a coming-of-age movie. It is a little bit scary. It’s mostly (confusingly) about time travel. And it’s funny!

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Donnie Darko, and Maggie Gyllenhaal plays his sister, a detail that absolutely thrilled me as a kid. Donnie has what he calls “emotional problems,” which manifest in destructive behaviors that have landed him in therapy. Donnie’s main problem is that he’s seeing visions of a large, talking bunny named Frank…it’s all very Harvey, but not cute. Frank warns Donnie that the world is about to end and helpfully provides him with a countdown, which adds a bit of Lynchian dread. Donnie spends his nights sort-of-sleepwalking, which works to his advantage when a jet engine falls on his house, directly where he would’ve been sleeping. What could have been a tragedy is now a weird anecdote, and Donnie goes about his life as Frank tells him what to do. He gets a girlfriend (Jena Malone, who’s never been cuter), deals with bullying from Seth Rogen and the lead singer of Phantom Planet, goes on a rant about the asexuality of Smurfs, has a killer Halloween party, etc. And if you want me to explain the ending of the film…well, I couldn’t in high school and I couldn’t now! I simply don’t understand any time travel plot, but more importantly, I’m not sure any film about time travel actually understands time travel. I’m not sure we have to understand time travel to understand what’s going on in Donnie Darko. Instead, I think of Donnie Darko as a film that’s more about a feeling, about the enjoyment of really thinking about a movie, noticing the details on third and fourth viewings, and coming up with your own theories.

Something was happening in the early 2000s that made us absolutely nuts about confusing movies. Remember that Vanilla Sky, a really confusing, theory-filled film, came out in 2001. Memento, another high school favorite of mine, came out in 2000. Mulholland Drive? You guessed it, 2001. We had a wealth of mysterious puzzle movies and an endless appetite for debating their plot points. Was it just that we didn’t have access to the internet in the way we do now? Were we bored? Because when deliberately obtuse movies come out now, people get pissed. I haven’t seen Beau is Afraid because Kerry is Afraid of Ari Aster, but recently he did an interview that was incredibly depressing. He talks about making a divisive film and being bummed out not that people hate it, but that they refuse to even engage with it. They’re not picking it apart to see the clues he left in it…they don’t even care. “I fantasize about there having been a time during which a film like this might’ve come out and divided audiences, and it would’ve made people excited to go to the theater in order to determine how they felt themselves, as opposed to just people hearing, ‘Oh, the response is all over the board, so I’m not going to bother.’ I knew this film was going to have people hating it or hopefully loving it, and I was hoping that the draw of a debate would be greater, as opposed to the response being something that would ultimately push people away from giving it a shot. So, the film will always be polarizing, but I just hope that people keep finding it.”

That’s bleak. It’s starting to feel like the whole of our cultural curiosity is only dedicated to figuring out Taylor Swift easter eggs now. I miss the times when movies were confusing as hell and we liked it!

But I don’t think you need to devote yourself to discovering the secrets of Donnie Darko (or watch the Director’s Cut, which I won’t watch because I assume Criterion knows what’s best for me) to really enjoy it. The cast is outstanding, even though Jake G. is so young and has such an angry baby face (not to bring it back to Taylor, but I kept thinking, “wow, can’t believe she wrote so many songs about this guy”). Drew Barrymore plays his rebellious, extremely gorgeous English teacher who gets in trouble for assigning a Graham Greene short story (this movie is also about book banning! Prescient!). Do you even know how much I wished I was reading Graham Greene in high school? So much. I would’ve loved to be at Donnie Darko’s weird, presumably private school that’s besieged by flooding and Patrick Swayze as a motivational speaker. Oh yeah, and Patrick Swayze is so good. So is Beth Grant, who utters perhaps the film’s most iconic line.

It's also important to note that this film is set in 1988 and it has the soundtrack to prove it. I was very into new wave in high school, despite the fact that I graduated in 2004. Honestly, if you looked at my CD collection from high school, you would’ve assumed I was a senior in 1988. “Head Over Heels” by Tears for Fears was and remains one of my favorite ever songs, and this scene is so good. I never really care about an all-in-one-shot take (honestly, I usually find them distracting because I spend too much time thinking about when/how they messed it up) but I do love this one. And it’s truly just for the vibes. This whole movie can be for the vibes, if you want it to be.

And it’s a perfect movie for Halloween (sorry I’m getting this to you the day after Halloween) because there’s a Halloween party! I think a skeleton sweatsuit/a hoodie would be a great, low-effort Halloween costume, but everyone would for sure just think you’re Phoebe Bridgers.

He knows the end.

It’s also a perfect movie for our times because it’s dark. Donnie is constantly waiting for the next bad thing to happen—he literally has a countdown to the world ending. He engages explicitly with religion when he talks to his therapist, saying that he feels alone and doesn’t see the point in searching for God. He’s getting these messages and he doesn’t know what to do with them—he only knows that something bad is coming. The dread he feels, and the dread the film is suffused with, felt extraordinarily apropos for this moment. This is a pop culture newsletter so I’m not going to rehash what’s happening in the world right now, but it’s bad. It feels awful, all the time, and it’s hard to feel a real sense of hope. Not to get too dark here, but I felt a sense of comfort in seeing Donnie confront the darkness.

Donnie does ultimately find some greater meaning in his life (not to spoil anything, and I guess that might just be my interpretation). But there’s something to be said for a movie that engages directly with our darker human feelings: our fear, our pain, our dread. Yes, parts of this film do feel as if they were made for emo teens in the early 2000s, but perhaps we all carry our early 2000s emo teens inside of us. Maybe we’re all just waiting for Halloween night and a time travel movie to let them out.

Does this post make sense, or is it like a confusing 2001 movie? I don’t know, maybe you can just read it for the vibes! I technically still have Covid, so keep that in mind. See you next week for the monthly roundup. xo