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Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Patrick Swayze, Drew Barrymore, Noah Wyle.

Written & Directed by Richard Kelly.

Genre: Drama / Thriller / Sci-Fi / Comedy.

Released: 2001

Re-Released: 2004

Running time: 133 min.

Rated: R (American rating for language, some drug use and violence).

IMDb link: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0246578/

Quite a few weeks ago, I took a look at Donnie Darko in preparation for the cinema release of the director’s cut. Now the new version of the movie has been released on DVD, and at the risk of being repetitive, I figured I’d take a look at it.

For those of you who came in late, here’s a recap of what it’s all about (and yes, I’ve simply copied and pasted this from the previous article…ah, the joys of lazy hack writing); Donnie Darko is your typical white suburban teenager living in the 1980s. He’s slightly rebellious, he’s fairly uninterested in school and he’s always horny. The problem is, he also suffers from psychotic episodes, and he hasn’t been taking his medication lately. So when a demon-faced bunny with an omnipresent voice leads him to a golf course in the middle of the night and tells him that the world will end in 28 days, he doesn’t know what to make of it. It’s a lucky thing the bunny, who calls himself Frank, coaxed Donnie from his bedroom, because that night be a jet engine plummets from the sky and crashes right through Donnie’s ceiling…Nobody knows where it came from. Whatever plane it fell from has simply disappeared.

So that’s the story in a basic nutshell. The only question is: How much does this version of it differ from the original?

Well, for starters, the director’s cut really solidifies the sci-fi elements of the story. The time travel aspects are brought a great deal more to the forefront, and their mechanics are given much more explanation. This really helps to clarify certain aspects of the story, which is helpful, but at the same time it’s a bit of a hindrance.

What was so great about the original version of the film was how widely it could be interpreted. Some people could see it as an elaborate comic book

adventure, others could see it as the feverish delusions of a doomed kid, and some could see it as something else completely different. The director’s cut, while still quite ambiguous in its meaning, really does nail a lot of things down.

Probably the strongest example of this would be the montage that occurs at the very end of the movie, where we see the film’s events take place in reverse.

In the original cut, this was done cleanly and simply, with a haunting voice-over from Donnie accompanying it. The director’s cut doesn’t lose this

voice-over, but it does add a metallic tinge to it that makes it hard to understand what’s being said and somewhat robs the emotional immediacy of the words. The same thing happens to the powerful images that run across the screen; the reverse montage now has a grid placed over it, with images of fireworks exploding interlaced throughout. The whole thing feels unnecessary, adding a sense of distance that wasn’t there before.

Another negative aspect would be the music. Both versions of the movie have stunning soundtracks, but the one piece of music that always grabbed me (besides, of course, Gary Jules’ now famous cover of Mad World, which plays towards the end of the film) was the use of Under the Milky Way by The Church. I developed an all new love of the song, thanks to its use during the party scene in the original film and the eerie parallel the lyrics had to the story. However, it’s been shunted to the front of the movie in the director’s cut, played in the background of a dialogue scene. Its place during the party has been usurped by The Killing Moon by Echo & the Bunnymen, which is used to open the film. It, too, is a great song, but it doesn’t capture me the way Under the Milky Way did.

All of these, of course, are simply minor quibbles. As to the question of whether the original cut is better than the director’s cut or vice versa, my opinion is…well, it doesn’t really matter. Neither is better or worse; they’re simply different to one another, and I’m glad to have both versions sitting up on my shelf.

Of course, the Director’s Cut DVD has a great audio commentary with Richard Kelly and fellow auteur Kevin Smith. Now that’s cool!

Next week: A return to shlocky splatter films.