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Donnie Darko (2001)

Director: Richard Kelly

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From Time Out Film Guide

This flawed but promising debut from writer/director Kelly is like The Ice Storm with a surreal psychological twist. It's 1988, and the title character (Gyllenhaal) is a moody adolescent in small town America. After a near fatal incident in which a jet engine falls on his house, Donnie suffers schizophrenic hallucinations of a spooky figure warning of imminent apocalypse. Kelly's script is an over-ambitious mess, dragging in time travel, high school politics, premonition and the presidential chances of Michael Dukakis, but his assured direction compensates. The tone alternates nimbly between comedy and horror, and two early sequences combine music (Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Killing Moon' and Tears for Fears) and image to stunning effect.

Author: NY 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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Cast & crew

Director: Richard Kelly

Producer: Sean McKittrick, Nancy Juvonen, Adam Fields

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Mary McDonnell, Jena Malone, James Duval, Drew Barrymore, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle full cast

Duration: 113 mins

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