The Daily Stream becomes the Daily Scream for spooky season!
On October 30th, 1988, suburban American teenager Donnie Darko will meet his fate. At least that’s what satanic bunny Frank tells Donnie in a dream on October 2nd. 2001’s Donnie Darko — the daring, disturbing, visionary debut from writer/director Richard Kelly, and one he has yet to top — is damn near unclassifiable: it’s a little bit time-traveling science fiction and a little bit of grim fantasy, with a lot of black comedy and social satire in the mix, but its overwhelming vibe is one of dread, of despair, of an inability to see past a stifling present to a plausible future. (It’s a mood that rings truer than ever today.) The real horror here is cultural conformity, and the hypocrisy and the cruelty that enforces it… and in his breakout role, Jake Gyllenhaal shapes Donnie into a tormented hero fighting for the right, nay the duty, to be alienated from such a reality. (Read my 2001 review.)
US: stream on Kanopy and The Criterion Channel; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Arrow and Shudder (both via Prime); rent on Curzon Home Cinema; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Donnie Darko at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
