The only version i've seen is the director's cut that was released in the UK some years ago, It's one of those films that warrants multiple viewings i guess, the documentaries help pinpoint the significance of characters that donnie engages and that makes it easier to understand.
if you are really interested, and you're portuguese or brazilian or simply understand it, you can check this scheme that tries to explain the story of the movie
Explain to me what's stupid about it? Cos I don't see it.
I can totally understand why someone wouldn't like Donnie Darko. The plot is a little zany, but there's nothing stupid about it. It's a hell of alot more thought provoking than most of the turd Hollywood rolls out these days.
If you watched the director's cut then go and try to find the original version, some people debate it but generally the first is considered the better version. Now onto the story.
There are two very popular interpretations to this movie, neither is 100% correct because art is entirely about interpretation. The first is that because Donnie had to die God showed him the world that never was. In this world Donnie's Mother, little Sister, Girlfriend and Frank( Frank the human was Donnie's older Sister's boyfriend, the guy in the bunny suit is either a higher power/angel/god/ect...) would have all died. And that is the first interpretation, that God felt like just killing Donnie and not explaining anything to him is unfair and wrong, so he lets him see why it has to happen. I like this better than the other.
Second Interpretation: This is all built off the extra information in the Director's cut, and it makes the movie much more sci-fi than the original. Donnie is a living reciever, the only person in the alternate reality who can be communicated with. Whoever tore a hole in "space time" is talking to donnie through frank. People who die while this alternate reality is taking place can be used by the time travlers, and they call them manipulated dead. In this vesrion, everyone that helps donnie is doing it because they subconsciously know the world is going to end, and instead of being a movie about understanding sacrafice, it is instead the story of a town trying to get their seperated reality back to normal. If you want more details listen to the commentary on the directors cut, its a worse movie in my openion, but the commentary has Kevin Smith on it and thats really cool.
I understood much more on my second viewing. I actually watched the director's cut first and then the theatrical one, which was noticably different. I liked the movie a lot, though I didn't really analyze it too much, which probably explains it. Maybe if I grow a neckbeard it'll help me realize how dumb the movie actually is.
Oh Donnie Darko. First saw this when I was 12 or 13 back in 2003 and I didn't understand a fucking thing. 15 viewings later and a shitload of research on the backgrounds, inspirations and implications of the film and I could be a fucking professor on that flick. One of the most impressively subtle films I've ever seen, the website which the studio thought was merely an ad campaign but became another integral part of the universe (similar to the Year Zero viral campaign for Nine Inch Nails album) and the sheer intelligence of the piece blows most other indie or sci-fi flicks out of the water.
If you write a movie that needs a guide book to explain what is happening and don't leave enough information in the movie to piece together the information without the guide, then it fails on a writing level.
The laws of the Donnie Darko world appear as quick page segments from the much larger explanation of the universe that Richard Kelly made up, but you wouldn't know that unless you read the longer explanation somewhere else.
There's a reason his follow up movie bombed and it's because Richard Kelly can't write a movie script.
i liked it when i watched it as a kid years ago, but i watched it last week again and wow. I understood it but it was just dull and not very interesting. I think it was because i knew all the plot twists so it wasn't as interesting to watch this time around. Who knows.
Summarizing it is simple its about him being stuck in a time loop, and hes gone through the events of the movie more then once. In the end he realizes the only way to stop the loop is to stay in his room and thus die. Thats like the plainest and least holy shit complicated thing summary i can give. People have written pages and pages explaining the movie
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