Retro Review: ‘Donnie Darko’ (2001)
It’s hard to nail down Donnie Darko as it succeeds on so many levels. It’s a science fiction coming-of-age tale, it’s high school gothic, it’s a floor wax, it’s a dessert topping! It’s a dense, complicated and amazing amalgam of genres and influences that really defies any constraints.
Jake Gyllenhaal really shines in a star-making turn as Donnie, a reclusive Holden Caulfield type with a bad sleepwalking habit. Lured out of his house in the middle of the night while in a sleepwalking state, he is visited by an evil, human-sized rabbit who informs him that the world is going to end in 28 days on the eve of Halloween. Returning home the next morning after waking up on a golf course, he finds that a plane engine mysteriously fell from the sky and landed in his bedroom. The strange thing is, there are no reports of a plane crash nearby, nor any reports of a plane losing and engine.
Patrick Swayze (in one of his best roles and performances ever) plays a self-help guru who promotes a system in which all human emotion is reduced to only love and fear. It’s as if director Richard Kelly is biting his thumb at the glut of mainstream movies afraid to pry deeper into the human psyche for fear of waking a numbed audience fed on simplicities.
The film constantly ellipses time so that motivations of characters may not be apparent immediately but coalesce and pay off later. It was one of many ‘puzzle’ films of 2001 (Memento, Mulholland Drive) and one of the most satisfying. One of year’s very best films.
Movie Matches: Mulholland Drive, Memento, Back to the Future
How to watch: Free in IMDb TV
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- 2026 Cannes Film Festival Winners: Cristian Mingiu’s ‘Fjord’ Takes the Palme, Seventh Win in a Row for NEON - May 23, 2026
- Cannes 2026: Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Un Certain Regard Grand Prize - May 22, 2026
- ‘Coward’ Review: Belgian Soldiers Find Love in Lukas Dhont’s Hidden Romance Masterpiece [A] Cannes - May 21, 2026
AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 345: Recapping the 79th Cannes Film Festival and Looking to the Awards Future 
‘The Beloved’ Review: Javier Bardem Makes a Meal Out of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Movie-Making Buffet [B] 
‘The Dreamed Adventure’ Review: Valeska Grisebach’s Observant Thriller Examines the Grey Zones of Morality [B+] 
‘Minotaur’ Review: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Timeless, Domestic Epic is an Unflinching Look at Putin’s Russia [A] Cannes