meghan’s review published on Letterboxd:
god, this movie. i genuinely don't know where to begin. donnie darko knows how to work its ambiguity to its advantage. films like this are what get conversations started and the fact that a movie can still have open interpretations over 15 years after its release is what makes it so impactful. i'll be thinking about donnie darko all night tonight, and i'll be wanting to talk about it all day tomorrow. that is how i know it's a genuinely incredible movie.
i have always loved jake gyllenhaal. in my eyes, jake can do no wrong and he hardly gets the recognition he deserves. his portrayal of the titular donnie, however, really made me stop and realize just how talented he really is. gyllenhaal's ability to portray so many emotions in a character who, in most cases, is flat affect is just a testament to what he can do as an actor. this could easily become one of my favorite roles of jake's.
donnie darko's ability to so intelligently combine science fiction and horror with grounded elements of reality and human emotion is what makes the film stand out. the blurred lines between the truth of donnie's mental instability and the fabrication of frank's tangent universe is so impossible to distinguish, making for a compelling and entirely capitivating story. if you aren't invested into untangling the film's web of time travel and alternate timeline's by the halfway mark, you've missed the point of the movie.