Donnie Darko
DVD released 2002
Running time 133 minutes
Seemed like 132 minutes
******** out of 9 stars

This film defies categorization. As I first watched, I thought it was a comedy. As it developed, I thought it was a coming of age movie, a la Breakfast Club. It even had the long tracks of popular music with silly editing. Then, it was a psychological thriller, then a murder mystery, and finally, it was science fiction. The movie crossed so many lines, it makes your head spin, and that's the beauty of it. This movie is developing a cult. A quick Google search returns 2.23 million results!

The cast was filled with relatively small stars. A young Jake Gyllenhaal, Mary McDonnell, Noah Wyle and Drew Barrymore (who was also the Executive Producer.) While their acting was fine, it is the story that makes this movie so watchable. I'm still scratching my head over what I saw (this explains the plethora of websites surrounding the movie.) I don't want to ruin the movie, but the exploration into schizophrenia is very engaging.

Technically, there were some audio problems. I know I missed some inportant dialogue since the soundtrack competed with the spoken word. The directing was snappy, and it never dragged. Some special effects enhanced the story, but never overwhelmed it.

This is a must-see! You'll never view Harvey the same way again!