Donnie Darko


Rental and DVD rental, Cert 15

One of the strangest and most personal films of the year, Donnie Darko is as hard to categorise as it is to explain. Its colour-bleached look and abrupt changes of tone keep the viewer disoriented and it has a kind of fuzzy feel all its own.

That first-time feature writer-director Richard Kelly got this through the system - no doubt with the assistance of Drew Barrymore as co-producer and cast member - is a triumph in itself and the film will be loved by disturbed adolescents and lots of the rest of us.

Kelly, on the DVD commentary, refers to reaching "the Spielberg end of the spectrum and the Cronenberg end" but there's a soupcon of David Lynch too without anything feeling borrowed.

For the plot, the less said the better. It involves sleepwalking, time travel and an evil giant rabbit, but try not to be put off by this. Donnie Darko charms, disturbs and intrigues in equal measure and feels like the start of a significant career.

Jake Gyllenhaal makes a suitably strange lead and Kelly makes atypical use of Barrymore and Patrick Swayze.

Rent the DVD from movietrak.com

Buy it from blackstar.co.uk

Contributor

Rob Mackie

The GuardianTramp

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