Cellar Door

I've seen a lot of smart movies. The Shining, Inception, Moon, Fight Club, etc. I'd like to think that I know my movies, I try to fully understand them and I make effort to research even minor details. The most recent one is of course Inception, everyone knows about that one, and I absolutely love it. But there's this sort of underground movie with a semi-large cult following and it blows Inception out of the water for me. Of course I don't want to make a comparison because you can't really, it's two completely different movies. So let's cut to the chase.

I never seen a more intelligent, surprising, unpredictable and deep movie such as Donnie Darko.

I'm fully aware that I'm quite late for the party, ten years late to be precise, but what can I say. I had the opportunity many times to see this movie, I just couldn't bring myself to do so. Partially because I wasn't really interested, partially because some opinions kept me away from it. Opinions like it's nothing but shallow melodrama, an emo wetdream and a mess plotwise. Man... I was an idiot for listening to those other, even bigger idiots. But to be honest, I'm glad I didn't see it back when it came out, because I was too young to comprehend the plot, let alone the sheer complexity of it. Now that I'm in my early twenties I can safely say that I get it. Even though I had to spend a few hours thinking about it and re-watching a few scenes.

It's quite hard to describe what it's about without spoiling it and frankly (see what I did there?) I wouldn't really know where to begin without being absolutely blunt. It's the kind of movie you have to see with your own eyes, preferably without any prior knowledge regarding anything in it. It's an experience, a journey if you will into a plot so deep that you have to pay attention to every minor detail. You won't really get it until the last ten minutes or so when everything unfolds.

Returning to the first half of the post, allow me me explain a little why I like it better than Inception. You see if you thought Inception needed more explaining, you sure never seen Donnie Darko. After watching it, I seriously thought that everything was blatantly spoon-fed to me in Inception. In Donnie, nothing is explicitly explained, only vaguely hinted at, everything is really subtle at least in the theatrical cut. Said version has it's downsides however, because it feels like it's a little too subtle and it doesn't explain some fundamental elements of the plot. Because of this it's easy to get confused and you won't really understand it. If you're planning to see it, I strongly recommend the director's cut version for various reasons. While it keeps it's subtle tone, it explains way more about what's going on, but it still manages to make you guess until the very end. If you pay close attention, and take your time to read what's needed to be read (you'll see), everything will come to full circle. So the director's cut version is highly superior to the theatrical release, because you'll actually understand it at the very end, provided you pay attention.

I wish I'd seen this movie a few months ago, because I could've declared it my best movie experience of 2010. But kicking off the year with something of this calibre is not too shabby either. I strongly recommend this movie to everyone who likes complex storytelling, subtle but great acting and deep plots.