Yes, yes. I know the cinema crowd was all aflutter about this movie, like, 50 years ago. I meant to see it, I really did. Somehow, I got it into my head that it was going to be more on the order of a straightforward kid-goes-bananas-and-kills-everybody splatter film, and I kept shuffling it to the bottom of my Netflix queue. Lord, how wrong I was. I actually just watched it a second time, because it occurred to me that there was quite a bit I missed the first time around (in terms of subtle cues, symbolism, foreshadowing, etc.)
In short, I was impressed. I loved the way it seemed that horrific calamity was always riiiiight around the corner, but when it came, it came in a way you didn’t really expect. Excellent suspense.
Thoughts and questions:
-
The whole framework of the movie seemed to me interpret spacetime in terms of quantum mechanics. In other words, “it is all one,” and spacetime can be manipulated more or less freely. There’s no such thing as a paradox, and the universe doesn’t care. Paths spring forth more or less infinitely from each choice.
-
I’m not entirely sure where Roberta Sparrow fit into the story, unless she sort of “closed the loop,” so to speak. She was the beginning of Donnie’s comprehension (or delusion) of what was going on, and she provided both the physical and metaphysical climax of the movie in the form of a) a place for everything to come to a head, and b) a way for Donnie to come to terms with his choice. She also seems to support the nonparadoxical nature of the universe, since she receives the letter, even though Donnie was ultimately killed by the jet engine, and thus never lived long enough to be led through all the chaos and horror of the leadup to Halloween by Frank, and thus never wrote the letter (at least, not in the first timeline.)
-
Yes, I realized that Frank was a Halloween costume fairly early on (they kinda beat you over the head with Oct. 31 as the “end of the world.” Thus, I thought I had the whole thing figured out. I was wrong.
-
Loved the music. Rare in-the-wild sightings of Joy Division, The Church, etc. It really helped to set a convincing late 80’s tone.
-
The humor in the movie really humanized it. I haven’t looked into this, but did Judd Apatow have anything to do with the writing? I spotted Seth Rogen in there, and the first time I viewed the movie, I had just watched the last disc of Freaks and Geeks. The slice-of-life high school drama of Donnie Darko was like a dark reflection of Freaks and Geeks. The similarities were striking at the time.
“Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!” 
-
Drew Barrymore’s character - how was she important? Was she thematically important in any other way than to provide a way to get “cellar door” in the story? Also, fairly unconvincing as a high intellectual.
-
Noah Wyle - quite convincing. I liked the short “wormhole” conversations with Donnie. They really summarized the entire plot of the movie in a couple of economical exchanges.
-
What was the nature of the “liquid souls” that Donnie perceived? Were they simply another visual manifestation of his psychosis, or did they have some metaphysical meaning? Were they future selves? Individual timelines? Were they manifestaions of wormholes?
-
Patrick Swayze’s character was utterly irredeemable…which means, of course, that Swayze played it perfectly. The only flash of humanity we see from him in the whole movie is the montage in the end, where he is seen crying, presumably over the fact that he is lost in his uncontrollable urges. At least in the timeline that was changed, his child porn collection was outed, and Donnie had given him at least a chance to reclaim his humanity, even if it would be a hard, horrific path.
-
The smug, self-righteous book banning teacher - oddly, in some ways, she was my favorite character, even though I despised her. She was just portrayed so skillfully. And she had a moment of utter clarity and wisdom in the confrontation with Donnie’s mother at the school (“I-I-I just don’t know if Donnie can be saved before he succumbs to the path of fear!”) And even though she was thinking in terms of Cunningham’s self-help bullshit, that thought was utterly appropriate and fitting to Donnie’s situation. And she delivered it with that apocalyptic, Baptist-preacher manner. Very effective.
-
Cherita Chen - I’m a little confused about her. Obviously, her life was pure, unrelenting hell. She had a crush on Donnie, but I’m a little confused about the significance of that fact. Maybe she was supposed to be the “rest of us,” a character whose destiny must be realized the old-fashioned way, by time and pain and experience, and not by some quantum shortcut. Big question mark.
-
I liked that Donnie’s bike was the only one in the leadup to the climax that did not have a headlight, and he was leading. Clever, subtle little piece of setting.
-
“I’m going home.” It cropped up several times in the movie. What was its significance?
-
“They made me do it.” Bwuh?
Wow. This turned out long.
