After much cajoling, dear old Ponty has delivered his magnum opus—the long-anticipated review of 2001’s moody, depression-inducing Donnie Darko.

I’ve gotsta hand it to old Pontifex Maximus:  he sure knows how to write a review.  Even yours portly—who, as readers know well, is never wrong in his reasoned, intelligent assessments—is regarding his position after reading Ponty’s review.  I may even give DD a second (or is it third or fourth, at this point?) chance.

I won’t spoil anything, but Ponty explains filters out the mud and the grey and brings some light to this otherwise dismal film.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 2001’s Donnie Darko:

Before Tyler published his infamous Donnie Darko review, I had planned to review it myself this year. It flitted through my mind over Christmas so I mentally added it to everything else I planned to write with a view to knocking something up in the Spring.

However, as luck would have it, I spotted Tyler’s analysis and figured that I wouldn’t have to write it after all. I’ve never met a living soul who doesn’t like that film so I thought Tyler will have written something great here, something pleasing, something to prod those who’ve watched it to pull it from their collection and give it another view or entice those unlucky few who have missed it to give it a watch.

Well, you can just imagine what I thought as each of the Portly’s words passed before my eyes, my face contorting with each sentence, disbelief washing over me and I knew right then that a mere comment just wouldn’t do; I’d have to write my own. A correction of sorts to those who might miss this excellent movie because of that one review, so without further adieu or excess, here are my observations of Richard Kelly’s excellent Donnie Darko.

Now Tyler would have you believe that this is some sort of Lynchian mess but it really isn’t. You’re not going to see Donnie’s friends leap out of the radiator in children’s clothing and you’re not going to see an editor who wants to put on a show. This film is as linear as you can get, bar a few side stories that fit onto the main as a wing does to a butterfly.

The film tells the story of a depressed teenager (Jake Gyllenhaal) who survives a plane engine falling into his bedroom. Soon after, he starts to have visions of a prophetic bunny rabbit who tells Donnie that the world will end. Talk about flogging a dying swan! Anyway, he does what any depressed teenager would do in this situation – act out. He meets a girl, Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone), who has similar emotional baggage and she calms him for a while, but when tragedy strikes, he must make a choice that will have profound effects on everyone around him. Simple, yes? And that’s the crux of it.

I wonder whether Tyler viewed the various episodes going on around Donnie and how they fit into the main story. Much of it is explained when Donnie starts to act out and secrets come tumbling out of the closet; the hypocrisy of a teacher who hero worships a motivational speaker who has a fondness for minors. This teacher, Kittie Farmer, also spends a good amount of time trying to get a book, then a teacher, banned because of the offence it causes, despite her own issues with dressing up little girls like adults and putting them front and centre. The book, by the way, Graham Greene’s “The Destructors,” neatly ties in with Donnie’s post-Frank (bunny) activities, thus explaining what these side stories have to do with Donnie’s.

Donnie, understandably, becomes obsessed with time travel and tries to learn as much as he can, first from a science teacher, then a woman nicknamed Grandma Death, who once wrote a book called The Philosophy of Time Travel, but who is now a recluse. He also relays his woes to his shrink who in typical psychiatrist fashion prescribes him more drugs. None of it really gets him anywhere but as fate dictates, tragedy hits and he finds the wheels of time turning slowly backwards until his world, or the world from everyone else’s point of view, resets and the troubles of this teen become the worries of someone else.

I love this movie for a number of reasons. First off, being a film set in the 80s, it has a great soundtrack. Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” kicks us off before we’re treated to Joy Division, Tears for Fears, Duran Duran, and The Church to name some. But I also think the score, the main composition from Michael Andrews is superb. There’s some gorgeous pieces, enhancing the story with wonder and a little mischief too. The special effects were also put to good use as in the scene where Donnie is shown where his next act of vandalism is to take place.

Tyler appears to believe that this film trivialises or at least glorifies mental illness but I really don’t see it that way. Gretchen’s comment that ‘some of us are just born with tragedy in our blood,’ for me, alludes more to the decade than the feeling. All of us, at some point, will have dug through the John Hughes 80s collection and seen teenagers with hang ups. It wasn’t only Hughes that did it. From A Nightmare on Elm Street to Footloose, the 80s teenager was generally depressed or so the films of that decade tell us. Parents who are overworked or not around, their children trying to find their own niche in life. So when I heard that line from Gretchen, I heard it as more of a homage to the decade than a nod to emos. And let’s face it, Gretchen’s past – in which her father stabbed her mother to death – does give her a little wiggle room in the bogged down department.

There’s a quirkiness to the acting performances in this film. Jake Gyllenhaal fits the role well, even though every single performance after this film was effectively Gyllenhaal being Gyllenhaal. I hope those who read this have already seen the film because if my review has you flicking this up for the first time, you will see JG perform as he has in virtually every role he has taken. Don’t let that turn you off though. Patrick Swayze, as motivational speaker Jim Cunningham, is surprisingly good as the quasi-celeb with his own issues, as is Beth Grant (Kittie Farmer), who has an interesting habit of playing busybodies. There’s a sort of indifference about Donnie’s father (Holmes Osbourne) that reminds me of a more upbeat version of Ted Wheeler, one of my favourite characters from Stranger Things but his mother (Mary McDonnell), who is also trying to find a way to fit into her surroundings, really cares about what is happening to Donnie and you can see that in her scenes. In fact, in all the performances in this movie, Mary McDonnell stands out from the crowd.

Some of the stories set my teeth on edge, like Farmer trying to ban “The Destructors” and her insistence that life can be explained by love and fear and nothing else but there is a warmth to the stories and humour too. I mean, of all those who have seen this, who doesn’t remember the Smurfette story?

This was Richard Kelly’s first big film and what a way to break into the industry. His writing and direction was nothing short of masterful, his timing perfection and nothing seemed out of place or done for show. He hasn’t done much since the release of this film and if he doesn’t do much more in the future, he’ll always have Donnie Darko.

My main takeaway is how despite everything, despite his depression, despite the loss of control he feels, Donnie grows up. He manages to wrestle some form of identity, individuality back and make his own decisions, whether to the detriment of others or the benefit of some. And though a lot of people probably sat in the pub after watching this, discussing the many and various permutations of what they’d just seen, at the heart of it was one story, of a troubled young man seeking answers.

Does he find them? I’ll let you decide that.