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In 2001 “Donnie Darko” came to the American cinemas as a feature film debut by the then 26-year-old screenwriter and director Richard Kelly and was catastrophically ignored-only to become an absolute favorite film and finally to become a cult classic within a few years. This screams for attempts to explain.
From the cinema flop to the DVD hit
First of all, “Donnie Darko” as a cinema flop and DVD hit is not an isolated case. Similarly, some films that had to be followed today, such as the beloved “The Big Lebowski” (1998), Terry Gilliams “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1998) and of course David Finchers “Fight Club” (1999). All of these films could hardly or narrowly import their budget in the American cinemas. Nevertheless, “Donnie Darko” takes a special status of cinema flops with his mini budget of $ 4.5 million, of which he was able to recreate just half a million within his six-month US cinema evaluation.
The fact that only a few Americans wanted to watch “Donnie Darko” in the cinema at the time had a lot to do with the social mood: the theatrical release was on October 26, 2001, just six weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11. He was hardly advertised by the rental, since its content was considered problematic in this sensitive time in several ways. An important part of the plot is the falling engine of a passenger plane. According to American marketers, the font to be seen in the film also seemed Arabic and the gloomy-melancholic subject by time travel, psychoses and death was classified as not tempting.
Fortunately, the sheet after the DVD release in March 2002: About mouth-to-mouth propaganda-many times in the form of online chats-the popularity of the film in the USA, Great Britain and also in this country was so that the “Donnie Darko” was still able to record his budget in the coming years.
Growing up in the multiverse of the 1980s
So what fascinated the audience that “Donnie Darko” unexpectedly made it out of the flop valley? Presumably a lot of what the distributors had put off at the film premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2001: “Donnie Darko” is difficult to assign to a specific topic or genre. At first glance, the plot revolves around coming-of-age issues, but then turns to an existence dilemma that affects all age groups. This develops from Donnie’s research into parallel worlds and time travel, making the film settled somewhere between mystery and science fiction with tragicomic elements. In addition, Richard Kelly insisted on putting the action into 1988, shortly before the presidential election between Republican George Bush Senior and the Democrat Michael Dukakis, which also opened the film a sociopolitical dimension, which in turn referred to the present.
And so we experience how title hero Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) not only has to cope with the first falling in love, apparent psychosis and puzzling events, but also, as in the suburban hell around him, conservative and liberal values compete against each other, while the end of the world is probably imminent. “Donnie Darko” also tells all of this in dreamwalking sequences, which together with the steamed color palette, smooth camera work and a melancholy 80s soundtrack (including Inxs, Joy Division, The Church and of course Gary Jules’ Tears-for-Fears-cover “Mad World”) create a dark melancholy atmosphere, which is irresistible seems.
The gift of ambiguity
The fact that “Donnie Darko” did not only emerge from the premature sinking, but was able to nest into pop cultural memory over two decades, in turn has to do with the enormous ambiguity of the plot. This deliberately hikes the classic three-act structure and offers an outcome instead of an end, which refers to the beginning and provides an eternal headache the role of parallel universes, chance and predictions in Donnie’s heroic trip. Countless forums, articles, graphics, video contributions deal with the ‘right’ interpretation of “Donnie Darko” from 2002. Undoubtedly, this was debated countless times in Friends of friends (sometimes intoxicated).
These excessive discussions were further fired by the official website for the film, which included excerpts from the “The Philosophy of Time Travel”, embedded in the film. Here you could read more about the theory of tangent universes, artifacts and the “manipulated” living and dead and incorporate into your own interpretation of “Donnie Darko”. The ambiguity of “Donnie Darko” extends over this parallel world plot (rather smiled by physicists), but still on forever negotiable questions about chance and predefination, free will and dealing with all of our mortality.
Unique stroke of genius?
“Donnie Darko” takes up an interesting place in film history, especially since it is further discussed whether this film is now to be classified as a pretentious, overloaded debut or finally as a must-sea classic. This consideration also plays a role that director Richard Kelly has unfortunately not been able to build on his unexpected success with “Donnie Darko”. His second feature film “Southland Tales” (2006) ran at Cannes Film Festival, but was neither able to convince critics nor the audience. The situation was similar with “The Box” in 2009.
Anyone who loves “Donnie Darko” will definitely not wish Richard Kelly this kind of failure. But tragically, this helps to make his debut film even more unforgettable. Unlike in the case of Quentin Tarantinos or Christopher Nolan’s entire work, Kelly’s other films “Donnie Darko” have so far not been overshadowed. Nor could this could be the horrific sequel “S. Darko” from 2009, in which Kelly was not involved. Nevertheless, he has been working on since 2017 A separation of the story about Donnie. And as the conscious nature of “Donnie Darko” corresponds, you don’t really know whether you should be happy or fear.