Cinepals - DONNIE DARKO (2001) Movie Reaction and Review!

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

Achara and Robert watch Donnie Darko, a surreal psychological thriller about a troubled teenager who, after narrowly escaping a deadly accident, begins to experience disturbing visions of a man in a rabbit costume who predicts the end of the world. The movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Road House, Nightcrawler, Prisoners, Brokeback Mountain, Spider-Man Far From Home), Jena Malone (Contact, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Dark Knight) and Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing, Road House, Ghost, Point Break). You can watch the cut down reaction to this movie (and many others) on our YouTube channel https://www.YouTube.com/@Cinepals and the full length reaction is available on our Patreon page https://www.Patreon.com/JabyKoay   SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS ~CINEPALS~ YouTube: @CinePals Insta: https://instagram.com/TheCinePals Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheCinePals ~ROBERT DUNNE~ Instagram: @itsrobertdunne  YouTube: ‪@GoodFormFilms‬ ~ACHARA KIRK~ Twitter & Instagram:  @Acharakirk  YouTube:  @Achara 

Sina. Pals! What's up, everyone? Welcome back. It's Achara Kirk and Robert Dunn here. And we're going to check out Donnie Darko. Now, full disclosure, I saw this movie a really long time ago. I do not remember anything. How can I not remember this movie at all? So it's going to be as if I haven't seen it,

but I'm just letting you know that I kind of have, but it's been wiped from my memory banks. And then Robert has never seen this. I've never seen it. Always wanted to. Jake Gyllenhaal is one of my favorite actors. and I know nothing about this movie. In fact, when we were pulling up the movie,

I was like, Drew Barrymore is in this? Like, that's how little I know. I didn't even know that. So anyway, you guys, let's jump into it. Here we go. What happened? I was mush by Jet Engine. I wonder if she feels anything.

Did you know him? No. Mm-hmm. So weird, right? Yeah. It's like they have this connection. Yeah. Oh.

Mm-hmm. Wow. What a movie. Crazy. I don't even know, like, oh, executive produced by Drew Barrymore. Oh, okay, that makes sense. It's wild. like holy crap i uh i knew the movie was a dark movie um i did but i knew nothing about it um i had no idea

there was a time travel thing i thought it was just about some creepy guy when to go in it i've only seen the poster this was heavy yeah this was heavy yeah like it's definitely one of those that upon finishing it i'm like okay i feel like this movie would be really really really fun to deep dive into and dissect like because watching it obviously like I'd already seen it a long time ago but like I said like I did not remember anything that went down but I felt like I was like everything is important every single frame every single thing every single picture in the background every single choice of book everything is communicating something but I'm not sure what and so like the little nerdy part of me goes but wouldn't it be so fun

to just kind of like go into all of the different things that they're referencing in the movie like you know watership down what are the themes of that and and everything it's been a while since I've read that as well and just go into how all of that connects because it it almost feels like we just watched someone's weird dream yeah I'm curious of like there's got to be interviews with like the writers I'm curious how they even I assume they went down like a rabbit hole, no pun intended, with like the idea of time travel and like these conspiracy and like writing a story maybe around that. Because I don't know how you would come up with like there's just this weird glob, like coming out of people. I wonder if that was like a previous, like if that

was something that actually was, was, you know, written about. I don't know. But yeah, I guess in the end, it's either he survives and like everyone dies or the opposite. Right. His family would die. she would die his girlfriend she did die right she wasn't just like her no she was dead yeah she was dead yeah and i mean and in the end he died alone yeah that's true ultimately you know i i think we all do you know we come in we come in and we leave yeah alone ish you know what i mean i thought it was really interesting that frank is such a buildup of like you know because we were making jokes like oh it's like a demon bunny or something he was just a guy yeah in the end he was just some dude and uh he wasn't this like God like being at all. It was just part of the time the time loop. Yeah. I mean, I guess there's two

ways that you can interpret the story, right? Because there's the one way which is Donnie is mentally ill and he's dealing with his mental illness and he's hallucinating and all of this is a product of his schizophrenia. That's on one side. And so I feel like there is an argument watching the movie. You could be like, yeah, totally. He's just he's a schizophrenic boy who came up with all this stuff and then ended up killing this other kid named Frank or it's this really weird trippy time travel story it just makes me wonder as well you know like how many times in the world and in history have we come across people who maybe have ideas that are out there and who are like this is actually what's going

on, like how they were saying in Watership Down, like the bunny has a vision and no one believes him, right? And so it's like, maybe Donnie Darko is like that and no one believes him. We just chalk it up to he's got a mental illness. But like, yeah, how many times do we come across people like that? And we just kind of discount them and it's like, it can't be this weird other thing that's going on. It definitely can't be the end of the world. Right. And if he was dealing with mental problems, he wasn't being medicated. I guess he was just on a placebo the whole time, which I wonder why they did that. I don't know why you wouldn't want to try medications to help someone, but I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know about his therapist. Yeah, I don't know either. She was kind of an interesting one. So in the end, though, was he able to, like, why did it repeat at the end? Like, why did he go back to day one? Was that just a movie showing us two alternate ways that it could have happened? Or did he actively make a choice? Yeah, maybe that is a thing, right?

Because when he was talking to a science teacher and they were having that argument about what those things mean right and then his teacher was like okay but if you could see your destiny ahead of time ahead of time then maybe the point is that like you're saying that you have free will and so you can just change the course of destiny or you could change the future so maybe that was the journey that he was on to because like that kind of threw me for a loop a little bit when they were talking about that because I was more in line with what his teacher was saying which is like, okay, yeah, if you can see the path ahead, then surely the amazing thing is that you can make different choices, right? But I didn't, I didn't fully understand what Donnie was saying with the

whole, like, you know, we operate within this parameter. Then I'm like, well, what's the point then? Right, right. What's the point of seeing that if you're just going to do it anyway? Yeah, the like, whatever he said, like the God timeline or whatever, because if there's a God that's making all these decisions for you, then you are following suit no matter why. You don't really have free will. Yeah. But if you could see ahead of time and decide to go off the beaten path, which I feel like, you know, the multiverse is so common today. Everyone knows what the multiverse is. I feel like this is like, it's a multiverse, right? And but back then it's like that was a brand new concept, you know, in movies maybe. Yeah. I'm probably wrong. I'm sure there's like tons of movies before this one, but. Or at least it

wasn't something that was so prevalently explored. Because like, yeah, right now, multiverse is like a thing that we keep seeing. If your movie doesn't have a multiverse, you know, what are you even doing? Yeah. Like, it's 2024. It's all about the multiverse. You know, but yeah, here it's just like, this is just wild, this concept of like, there are realities within realities, worlds within worlds.

And I think it's just so interesting to explore. And it's such like a weird little movie. Yeah. But I'm so glad that it exists. Oh, me too. It kind of feels like a multiverse, like, Final Destination vibe where, yeah, he escaped death somehow. Well, he escaped death. Yeah.

But then he had to close the loop. But then maybe, yeah, but then the other reality he survived. So maybe there are other realities where the thing came in and he managed to, like, roll to the side a little bit more. And he didn't die, you know, like, I guess I just really wanted it to be that reality where somehow he managed to escape it. And there was like this happy ending for him. but maybe that's not the point maybe the point is just that he accepted that this was just how it's supposed to be and he had the opportunity to live like 28 days right right this alternate reality of like having a girlfriend yeah it was really sweet like I loved all that

stuff that was the saddest part of like oh they didn't meet at all yeah and I was like oh that's too bad that's too bad like this movie had so much it had it had everything going on you know it was like a little bit of teen movie, it was a romance, it had, it was like high concept, time travel craziness and also horror because they were like genuinely scary things going on. Also like so many, there was like actors, you know, I went into this not knowing anything. You know, I didn't know Drew Barrymore was in it. I didn't know Seth Rogen was in it. Yeah, like five lines in the whole movie.

I know. I was like, what? He was in this? This is crazy. At first I thought he was just going to be like an extra. I thought so too. I'm like, wow, he's just, because he had like, didn't he have like a couple line? Was it him or Jonah Hill that was an anchorman or something?

It was like, I don't remember. I don't know. They had like one line or something. I could be wrong about that. But yeah, I thought it was going to be an extra and it was going to be one of those things of like, oh, wow. Because I know like Brad Pitt was an extra in some movie that you can see. It's really funny to see that.

Yeah, no, this was this was really, really interesting and like such an ambitious movie for what it is. And like soundtrack and everything. I thought that watching the scene play out as Mad World was playing, I was like, oh my gosh, I get it now. That's such an epic song choice for that. And like maybe it is. It's like this was a dream all along. You know, the dream in which he's dying is the best he's ever had because it's the dream where everyone else gets to live, you know? And I appreciated the score, something, one of the biggest things I'm a fan of what movies is the score.

And I really like that. I tried to like pay attention to that. It was very like ominous and like kind of creepy. Now I feel like it could be, because I've heard people bring up this movie in conversation and I can never join. But now I can. Yeah, this movie was awesome, you guys. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

If there are like really great video essays or something that you know, like kind of like deep dive into this movie would love some recommendations and if there are other movies similar to this or like anything at all that you think we might enjoy do leave them in the comments below yeah any deep character study would

would it be interesting yeah this is great this is cool anyway see you guys next time I'm Achara Kirk this is I'm Robert Dunn Ciao bye