Donnie Darko
This is highly symbolic, just filled to the brim with metaphors, implied senses, dutch angles. But it’s also a rabid anti religion screed, up the wazoo, I love it.
The “framing device” if you want to call it that is all about Donnie getting hit by a jet engine, but before he can go to hell or heaven, he will stay for about a month in purgatory, to see the life he could have had if he behaved. This is pretty explicit, but the inner plot is the important one.
He is saved from the jet engine by sleepwalking away from home, guided by The Devil (I guess). This entity has the power to giveth, and the power to taketh away, so maybe that’s God itself, as the shrink says? Either way, the human with the Halloween costume is just a vessel of its will.
Donnie lives in the heart of suburbia and goes to a Jesuit school, with the massive IHS letters emblazoned in the front. The first lines are about his sister voting for Michael Dukakis over CIA Man Bush Sr, and Reagan masks feature prominently.
Even though that zip code is on the upper echelons of all socio-economic indicators, it’s worse than Chigago South Side: the bad boy literally snorts coke out of his locker in the open, and our protagonist is threatened with a switchblade to his throat at some point.
The classes are no better. English is absolute apathy, even though the well meaning teacher presents a Graham Green short story all about teenage angst, something that would be right up their alley. This makes target of politically motivated grievances and she is fired from her post.
The instigator of this cancellation is a kind of über-conservative, a gym teacher version of Phyllis Schlafly. To add insult to injury, she is also very much into self-help as part of the curriculum. There’s a particular grifter she loves and follows, he will show up in the future.
The other subplot is the talent show. The bullied immigrant kid presents some interpretative dance number, fitting for a Jesuit school. But Phyllis and the overachievers have a group of their children flaunt their pre-pubescent asses around, with some filthy music playing on the background. Of course they win, and go to some LA shindig.
As for our protagonist, a kind of depressed Holden Caulfied, he meets the new girl that comes to their school. She is not bullied, just sexually harassed for her looks, but she bonds with our protagonist. Her mother was attacked by her husband, so they are kind in a witness protection scheme.
This is just the background stories, the main plot includes the bunny rabbit in the posters. Our protagonist had some prior mental episode and sees a shrink regularly. His loving parents are desperate, particularly the mother, but they let him roam free. I’m guessing they all have difficulties expressing their feelings, it’s mutual.
Said bunny rabbit is either God or Satan, his imaginary friend, but his nudges are mostly evil. He cajoles him into bursting the school’s water main, which means school is out for a day, so he can spend more time with his girlfriend. The bunny is all about time travelling, that will be fully explained by the end.
Phyllis invites the self-help guru for a lecture, but our protagonist boycotts it, by asking him how much money is he pocketing to lie to children, and calling him the Antichrist. He eventually finds his wallet, and the bunny goads him into burning his house down. Our protagonist goes to the movies, to see Evil Dead with his girlfriend, but she sleeps through the whole thing, he sneaks out to burn the house. Curious, the other film on the marquee is Halloween and The Last Temptation of Christ.
The fire reveals the self-help guru is a kiddie porn fiend! He had a hidden room behind a massive painting of himself, and distributed CSAM in a large area. Phyllis knows this is a plot to take down an innocent prophet of truth, and so keeps worshipping false idols.
There’s also a subplot with the demented old lady who was a physics teacher at the school, and wrote a book describing our protagonist’s condition, but the current physics teacher cannot deviate from the school-mandated fate explanations, or he will also be fired, like his girlfriend the English teacher.
You will have to see how did the jet engine got into his room, and who is the bunny rabbit, there’s a man underneath the fur.
The soundtrack is filled with depressing English singers, and ends with a non-ironic use of “Mad World” by Tears for Fears.
This cast is absolutely crazy, there’s so much future stars. Both Gyllenhalls plays siblings, their little sister is Samara from The Ring and Chihiro, the girlfriend is Jena Malone as a baby, one of the bullies is Seth Rogen (horribly miscast). The good teachers are Drew “Scream” Barrymore, and Noah “ER” Wyle. There’s a lot of smaller parts for other stars, the shrink is the girl from The Graduate!
Apparently there’s a sequel too, focused on the little sister?
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.