Donnie Darko (2001)

“Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?”

Join Ian & Liam for our 354th episode as we follow a six-foot rabbit through suburban America, try to work out what the hell is actually happening and discover that sometimes “cult classic” is another way of saying “you may need to do some homework afterwards” for Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001).

Megs isn’t with us this week — Frank told her something terrible was going to happen in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds, and she decided to make other plans.

Kev was due to join us, but unfortunately a jet engine fell through his bedroom ceiling.

This week we discuss:

• The women of Donnie Darko absolutely steal the film. Mary McDonnell, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Beth Grant give the movie an enormous amount of its personality.
• Except, perhaps, Drew Barrymore. Her performance itself is fairly uneventful — but her importance to Donnie Darko ever getting made cannot be understated.
• Beth Grant: the new Tracy Reiner? Another actor who seems to keep turning up in very good films, doing great supporting work without necessarily getting the attention.
• Kitty Farmer. An absolutely dreadful human being and one of the most entertaining characters in the movie.
• Does the theatrical cut actually make any sense? We watched the version audiences originally saw — and were left with rather a lot of questions.
• How exactly does Donnie restore the timeline? The ending clearly expects us to understand what Donnie has accomplished. Did the film actually give us enough information to get there?
• What is the significance of Cherita Chen? The movie keeps drawing our attention towards her — but what exactly are we supposed to take from it?
• Why does Seth hate Donnie so much? And more importantly, what the hell is he doing at Grandma Death’s house at exactly the moment the film needs him there?
• The Trans Am as deus ex machina. Donnie literally identifies it as one — but does acknowledging a convenient plot device somehow make it less convenient?
• Frank. Terrifying rabbit, warning, guide and possibly the thing holding the entire movie together. How much are we actually supposed to understand about him?
• Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie. Troubled teenager, unreliable protagonist, prophet, victim — or some mixture of all four?
• The Director’s Cut enters the conversation later. Once Richard Kelly starts filling in the blanks, do the answers actually improve the movie?
• And which film would we rather have watched? The theatrical cut that leaves us confused but intrigued, or the Director’s Cut that explains considerably more of what Kelly intended?
• Gary Jules’ “Mad World.” Inspired or sacrilege? One of the defining musical moments of the film — but what happens when Tears for Fears gets stripped down into something completely different?
• The soundtrack generally. How much of Donnie Darko’s reputation is inseparable from the music surrounding it?
• Patrick Swayze as Jim Cunningham. Inspired casting, particularly once the movie starts revealing exactly who this apparently perfect motivational speaker really is.
• Fear and love. Is the film simply mocking simplistic self-help culture, or making a broader argument about the danger of reducing complicated people to easy answers?
• Is Donnie Darko actually profound? Or does it create such an effective atmosphere that we start supplying some of that profundity ourselves?
• And finally, whether Donnie Darko is the Best Film Ever — a brilliant cult classic, an ambitious mess, or a movie whose biggest strength may be that nobody entirely agrees on what they just watched.

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