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Tarot (2024)
In the long line of horror movies about dumb teenagers stumbling onto curses, Tarot might be one of the most ineffective and ridiculous. First off, tarot readings are so detailed and specific, while also being vague to most of us unfamiliar with what you can find on the playing cards. This means the movie must constantly remind the viewer what the fateful readings were as well as the spooky imagery. Also, being a PG-13 movie, means that the terror is kept more on a psychological bullying level, where the teens have to “face their fears” but they’re not terribly personalized. One girl finds herself in a magician’s performance for ghouls and literally hides in a box only to be sawed in half. What was the personal fear there? Stage magicians? One guy is in a subway station and comes across a newspaper with his face on it and the headline, “You Die Today” (who says print media is dead…. wait a second). This is one of those movies that suffers because the rules of the curse are sketchy at best. We don’t know the escalation or how the teens might beat it. However, I wanted to almost applaud in amazement when the script practically plays an Uno Reverse card on its angry spirit (“If she’s killing everyone because they got their horoscope read, what if WE read HER horoscope to HER, huh?!”). The entire enterprise feels transparently like some studio exec optioned the concept of a tarot deck and said, “You know, make it haunted or whatever.” Unless you’re desperate for some derisive entertainment chuckles, skip Tarot.
Nate’s Grade: D+
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Napoleon Dynamite (2004) [Review Re-View]
Originally released June 11, 2004:
Napoleon Dynamite was an audience smash at the 2004 Sundance film festival. Fox Searchlight jumped at the chance to distribute a film written and directed by Mormons, starring a Mormon, and set in film-friendly Idaho. MTV Films, the people behind alternating good movies (Better Luck Tomorrow, Election) and atrocious movies (Crossroads, Joe’’s Apartment, an upcoming film actually based on Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8r Boi” song), came aboard and basically said, “Look, we really like the movie, and we want to help bring it to a wider, MTV-influenced audience.” And thus, Napoleon Dynamite seems to have become the summer biggest must-see film for sk8r bois and sk8r grrrls nationwide.
Napoleon Dynamite (John Heder) is an Idaho teen that marches to the beat of his own drum. He lives with his Dune Buggy riding grandmother and 31-year-old brother Kip (Aaron Ruell), who surfs the Web talking to women. When their grandma gets injured, Uncle Rico (John Gries), stuck in the 80s in fashion and mind, takes up shop in the Dynamite home and coerces Kip to hustle money from neighbors. Meanwhile, Napoleon befriends Deb (Tina Majorino), an otherwise normal girl with a sideways ponytail, and Pedro (Efren Ramirez, who was actually in Kazaam!), the new kid at school. Together, they try and get Pedro elected to class president, but standing in their way is the mighty shadow of Summer (Haylie Duff), the most popular girl in school. Oh yeah, there’’s also a llama.
First time director, Jared Hess, and first time cinematographer, Munn Powell, orchestrate shots very statically, with little, simple camera movements and many centered angles. The style is reminiscent of the films of Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse), or, more precisely, Wes Anderson. This shooting technique makes the characters stand out even more, almost popping out at you behind flat backgrounds like some Magic Eye picture. Hess easily communicates the tedium of Idaho with his direction. Can anyone name any other film that takes place entirely in Idaho? (Please note that My Own Private Idaho takes place in Portland and Seattle, mostly).
The star of the show is, of course, Heder. His wickedly funny deadpan delivery helps to create a truly memorable character. He achieves a geek Zen and, judging from the incredible amount of kids under-14 that appeared both times I saw this film, is most likely the greatest film realization of a dork. It’s grand dork cinema, a genre long ignored after the collapse of the mighty Revenge of the Nerds franchise. So while Napoleon isn’’t exactly relatable (llamas, Dune Buggy grannies and all), the right audience will see reflections of themselves. You’’ll be quoting from Napoleon all summer.
Napoleon Dynamite is going to be an acquired taste. It’s filled to the brim with stone-faced absurdities and doesn’’t let up. If you’’re not pulled in with the bizarre antics of bizarre characters in the first 10 minutes, then you may as well leave because otherwise it will feel like the film is wearing you down with its “indie weirdness.” Napoleon Dynamite seems to skirt the sublimely skewed world of Wes Anderson, but Napoleon lacks the deep humanity of Anderson’s films. What the audience is left with is a sugary, sticky icing but little substance beneath, and, depending on your sweet tooth, it’’ll either be overpowering and a colossal disappointment or it’’ll taste just right for the occasion. Alright, I’’m done with baking analogies for the year.
Some will find a certain condescension against the characters. Napoleon Dynamite doesn’’t outright look down upon its characters, but it does give them enough room to paint themselves fools. Uncle Rico is really the film’s antagonist, yet he’s too buffoonish to be threatening. It’’s a fine line for a film to have condescension toward its characters, but Napoleon Dynamite ultimately leaves with a bemused appreciation for its characters. The film presents the “good” characters as unusual but lovable and ready for growth (Kip, Pedro, and of course Napoleon), but the “bad” characters (Summer, Uncle Rico) aren’’t demonized. In essence, Napoleon Dynamite is the best example of a film that makes an audience laugh at and with its characters simultaneously.
Napoleon Dynamite is assuredly an odd duck. Some will cheer; others will want to head out the door after a few minutes. It’’s hard to say which reaction an individual will have. If you have a geek-enriched history populated with unicorns, Dungeons and Dragons, and/or social ostracism, then you may be more inclined to admire Napoleon Dynamite. I laughed out loud throughout the film and found it to be an enjoyable diversion, and I went the whole review without one Jimmy Walker reference.
Nate’s Grade: B
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
I feel like trying to explain the unexpected pop-culture success of Napoleon Dynamite is a fool’s errand, ultimately leaving one sputtering out and ending with the disappointing culmination, “Well, you just had to be there, I guess.” It was 2004, before the rise of YouTube and dominant social media outlets, and for whatever reason, if you were under 30, you probably fell in love with this Idaho nerd, or at least fell in love sounding like this Idaho nerd. I couldn’t travel more than a few blocks without overhearing some loitering Millennial uttering, “Gawsh” in mock exasperation, or mentioning llamas, tater tots, ligers, or catching a significant other a “delicious bass.” If you can recall how annoying and omnipresent the Borat impressions were after that 2006 movie’s mainstream splash, well the silver lining to every person, usually a smirking male member of the species, saying, “My wiiiiiiife,” was that it finally pushed aside everyone else endlessly imitating Napoleon Dynamite (John Heder). This movie was everywhere in 2004. It was meme-ified before meme culture became prevalent. Re-watching this movie twenty years later is like excavating a novelty from a different time and trying to better analyze why this silly and stupid little movie about weirdos living their weird lives became a zeitgeist breakout.
If I had to explain the appeal of Napoleon Dynamite, I think it serves as the next step in the evolution of comedy for younger adults. The Muppets are a deservedly celebrated comedy troupe for over 50 years, and beyond the iconic characters and their mirthful camaraderie, I think their ongoing appeal is that it’s an introduction to the forms of irony for younger children. It’s teaching that there can be more behind the silly, and Napoleon Dynamite takes that PG-comedy baton and pushes it forward, as its entire being is one of ironic comedy. The entire movie is built upon the viewer finding the behavior and banter of these characters hilarious for being so straight. There aren’t really jokes in the traditional sense of setups and payoffs; every line has the potential to be a joke because it’s a character saying something ridiculous without the awareness of being ridiculous. As I said back in 2004, “If you’’re not pulled in with the bizarre antics of bizarre characters in the first 10 minutes, then you may as well leave because otherwise it will feel like the film is wearing you down with its “indie weirdness.” Perhaps this style of comedy, a feature fully dedicated to ironic detachment, served as an awakening for others in my age-range, who championed the absurdity of the everyday and lionized the liger-loving man. This movie doesn’t achieve the larger artistic ambitions in a heightened tone of a Wes Anderson or a Yorgos Lanthimos, two masters of droll deadpans. It’s not deep. It’s not complicated. It’s always obvious, but that made the comedy all the more accessible to so many, especially for younger teens and kids.
As a movie, Napoleon Dynamite can be overwhelming. Seeing any clip of this movie serves the same comedy function as watching the entire 96-minute experience. It helps to structure the movie around a nerd’s quest to win over the girl and help his fellow outcasts. It has a recognizable us-versus-them formula where we can root for the weirdos to, if not prove their naysayers wrong, at least prove to one another that they have found acceptance from the ones who matter. It works on that familiar territory. Napoleon’s big dance at the talent show is his triumph, showcasing to the rest of the school his skills, though he runs away before the adulation can be felt, robbing his character of the perceived victory but giving it to the audience instead.
For most of the people involved in this movie, they had a brief burst of wider success before gradually coming back down to Earth. Heder was the obvious breakout and was given bigger supporting roles in studio comedies like Just Like Heaven, School for Scoundrels, Blades of Glory, and Surf’s Up, the other animated penguin movie from 2006. Heder has worked almost exclusively in the realm of voice acting in the last decade, including 2024’s Thelma the Unicorn, directed by Jared Hess and co-written by Jared and his wife Jerusha, the same creative team that gave us Napoleon Dynamite. I never really vibed with any other Hess comedy. I didn’t get the love for 2006’s Nacho Libre, and from there the movies just got worse to unwatchable, like Gentlemen Broncos and Don Verdean, each trying to chase that same combination of detached irony and quirk that proved so successful for them in 2004. I think the inability to follow-up Napoleon Dynamite with another breakout comedy of its ilk speaks to the unpredictable nature of assembling the right mixture of actors, tone, and material, as well as good timing. Would Napoleon Dynamite have been as big a success in 2009 as opposed to 2004? Maybe not. There was a six-episode animated TV series version in 2012, and the fact that I never remembered this probably answers the question over whether the filmmakers got lucky in 2004.
Napoleon Dynamite is the exact same movie it was back in 2004 as it now resides in 2024, and forever more. It’s flat, detached, silly, light-hearted and the same joke on repeat, and if you feel yourself gravitating toward that comedy wavelength, then hop on and enjoy. Re-watching it for me was like revisiting a fad from the past that was hard to put into context. What was it that made so many buy “Vote for Pedro” T-shirts and talk about throwing footballs over mountains? Comedies more than any other movie lend themselves to audience dissemination, to take the jokes and moments and characters and run with them. Nearly every successful comedy has experienced some form of this, so why should Napoleon Dynamite be any different? It’s perfectly understandable to watch this movie unfazed, unamused, and questioning what exactly people found so amusing about this guy and his extended family and friends back in 2004. It’s also understandable to smile and chuckle at the absurdities played so matter-of-factly. Gawsh.
Re-View Grade: B-
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The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
Who exactly was watching The Hunger Games and thought to themselves, I wonder if this evil old fascist dictator played by Donald Sutherland was ever young and sexy and in love? Well fear not, whomever you are, because 2023 gave us the adaptation of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, the far too long adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ prequel book, thus granting the studio more material to grind into products. I guess we should all be grateful that this wasn’t stretched into two movies like the original plan. Taking place 60 years prior to the events of the first movie, young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is trying to financially secure his family’s safety in the Capitol, and he’s also mentoring one of the district combatant’s in the tenth annual Hunger Games death match. His charge is District 12’s Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a feisty Romani-esque young woman who uses song as her vehicle for rebellion, and young Snow has to coach her to victory if he has any hope of righting his family’s lost standing. Fortunately, the Hunger Games behind-the-scenes coordination and development is interesting, and filled with top-level actors living it up in these outsized roles (Viola Davis, you national treasure). The deadly games themselves are confined to one dilapidated arena and are visually engaging even in such a limited space. Unfortunately, the would-be Romeo and Juliet romance between Snow and Lucy Gray is far less engaging, and young Snow proves to be a handsome bore. There was potential here in exploring the origin of a monster but the villainy seems awfully contrived to push him along on an arc, with several drastic personal decisions absent believable development. We’re talking big character leaps here, the kind that I can’t even really explain except, “Well, I guess he just had it in him the whole time.” The hazy rationalization and rushed development reminded me of Anakin Skywalker’s underwhelming descent into the dark side. Songbirds & Snakes is only really going to work for the diehard fans of the franchise asking for a little more time in this dystopian universe and daydreaming about the washboard abs and baby blue eyes of their favorite older fascist.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The Idea of You/ Turtles All the Way Down (2024)
The Idea of You is the kind of movie that Hollywood used to crank out, a romantic drama star vehicle based upon a popular novel and with a skilled director, and now it forgoes any theatrical run and ends up as another option on a streaming channel. The Idea of You follows a 40-year-old divorced single mom played by Anne Hathaway who also happens to run an L.A. art gallery and has a meet-cute with a handsome boy band member (Nicholas Galitzine, Purple Hearts) at the Coachella music festival (oh the magic lives of people never having to worry about bills in rom-coms). they hit it off, and the rest of the movie is whether or not they can make a romance work. There’s a 15-year age gap that she feels very self-conscious about as an older woman (“older” by Hollywood standards). She’s this formerly normal woman who wants to date one of the most famous music stars in the world who isn’t always available, but most of the problems and conflicts stem from the perceived issues of the age gap. It’s a charming romance that’s more dramatic than it is comedic, and Hathaway is quite good as our lead plucked from obscurity. Though the many scenes of our smitten boy band member making googly eyes at Hathaway as he reminds her how attractive she is, and as she bashfully demurs, are a little much (it’s Anne Hathaway, notorious horrible-looking human specimen, right?). As a core romance, the movie works well under the guidance of director and co-writer Michael Showalter (The Big Sick), and it’s more adult than I was expecting. It’s rated R for language and it’s also more sensual, but it’s also more adult as in looking at the ramifications of this relationship in a mature perspective, from the terrors of paparazzi imposition to her daughter being harassed at school. The portrayal is thus more engaging and engrossing and feels above the more flippant and flimsy romances that would settle for far less. Though be warned: there are several sequences of singing and serenading which might cause you to shrink awkwardly inward on your couch. Surprisingly thoughtful, and relatively romantic, The Idea of You is a charming reminder of the appeal of comforting tales of love blossoming in unexpected places and pretty people allowing themselves the choice to be happy.
Based on best-selling YA author John Green’s 2017 novel, Turtles All the Way Down is a very accessible and very affecting glimpse at living with mental illness, obsessive compulsive disorder, and intrusive thoughts. Aza (Isabela Merced) has an overwhelming inner monologue that sabotages her daily life in high school and carries her along anxious thought diversions, constantly relating to some illness growing inside her that she needs to cleanse. This is the crux of the story, along with her relationship with her super eager best friend. There’s a romantic side plot where she helps out a rich classmate whose billionaire dad has gone missing, which feels like a plot device to necessitate the two characters spending time together. The standout aspect of this adaptation by writer/director Hannah Marks (Don’t Make Me Go) is its unsparing and honest yet hopeful depiction of mental health and intrusive thoughts. Merced (Dora and the Lost City of Gold, Madame Web) is excellent and deeply empathetic as this woman held hostage by her wayward thoughts and impulses. It’s a performance that goes beyond easy depictions of aloof detachment or exaggerated histrionics, shedding any acting techniques that are too mannered or attention-seeking. Marks’ direction helps reflect Aza’s troubled mind with rapid insert edits and voice over to communicate the intrusive thoughts and maelstrom of spiraling negative emotions. If you’re a fan of Green’s popular novels, or YA-themed literature, or even just honest attempts to empathize with teens in turmoil, then Turtles All the Way Down is worth battling through any negative thoughts to finish and relish the journey.
Nate’s Grades:
The Idea of You: B
Turtles All the Way Down: B+
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Mean Girls (2024)
Child: “I want Mean Girls [2024], mom.”
Parent: “We have Mean Girls [2004] at home.”
Consider this bouncy 2024 remake Mean Girls Plus, as the only additions from the popular high school comedy are the adaptations made to retrofit Tina Fey’s comedy for the Broadway stage. Twenty years later, the cast is more diverse, some of the jokes that have aged the worst have been removed (fewer fat jokes and no more teachers sleeping with underage Asian students), and the 97-minute original now becomes a 112-minute musical. The cast is winsome and charming but fail to disperse your memories of the original cast that featured future Oscar nominees Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried or even Lindsay Lohan during the height of her career (Lohan cameos as the mathlete judge). Renee Rapp (The Sex Lives of College Girls) has got the most command as this next generation’s Regina George, a role she played during the Broadway run. Your overall impression is going to hinge entirely upon your evaluation of the pop-heavy songs, which to my ears were pleasant but unmemorable melodic pap. There is the occasional snarky line (“This is modern feminism talking/ Watch me as I run the world in shoes I cannot walk in”) but most of the lyrics and jokes are mild additions from what Fey’s movie already established. The standout musical moment might be a goofy throwaway number about all the different sexy Halloween costumes a woman should be able to dress in (“If you don’t dress slutty, that is slut shaming us”). The staging features lots of long takes and tracking shots to better appreciate the nimble dance choreography with the occasional visual addition (phone screen inserts make for modern backup singers). The memorable 2004 lines that have stuck as Millennial memes are included but treated like returning victors, but when elevated and given space for applause, it feels so strange and artificial. The 2004 movie didn’t do this. Regardless, you can do worse than a slightly updated version of Mean Girls with all-right songs, though you could also simply re-watch the original.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Bottoms (2023)
I really wanted to like Bottoms, a sex comedy told from the perspective of a marginalized group literally learning how to defend themselves and develop a sisterhood of support and violence. It’s a high school comedy with two very winning leads, Rachel Sennot (also co-writer) and Ayo Edebiri, and it’s from the same director as Sennot’s breakout 2020 indie, Shiva Baby. It’s just that the comedy is working so hard, the energy level is cranked up so high, but the results tipped more into the realm of obnoxious characters overselling lackluster material. The two main characters create a school fight club under the guise of teaching their fellow female students how to defend themselves, though the real reason is to impress and then sleep with the hot cheerleaders that they’re crushing over. This also leads to them soaking up all the physical tumbles and sweaty wrestling contact with their crushes. The sleaze of the premise feels a little too easily excused in a misplaced “girls can do it too” sentiment. The explosions of real violence, including actual literal bloody deaths, doesn’t feel properly integrated into the tone of this heightened universe. There’s so much aggressive exaggeration that it’s hard to find a baseline here. It almost feels one or two jokes away from a spoof movie. There are no straight characters (not hetero-normative) characters to better play off the stilted silliness. I just don’t think the jokes and callbacks are there. The banter is occasionally amusing but it tapers off too often like an improv jag slowly running out of steam. It’s not a good sign during the end credit blooper reels when the outtakes prove that only one or two actors may actually be skilled at improv, one of them perplexingly retired NFL athlete Marshawn Lynch who is actually quite funny as a laid back teacher learning about feminism. The ensemble is filled with good actors having real fun playing such arch spins on high school movie stereotypes, and I applaud reclaiming the high school sex comedy from a modern lesbian perspective, but unfortunately Bottoms didn’t work up that many genuine laughs from me.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Holdovers (2023)
Oscar-winning director Alexander Payne and Paul Giamatti re-team for a poignant and crowd-pleasing holiday movie about outcasts sharing their vulnerabilities with one another over the last week of 1970. Giamatti stars as Paul Hunham, a rigid history teacher at an all-boys academy who just happens to be liked by nobody including his colleagues. He gets the unfortunate duty of staying on campus during the Christmas break and watching over any students who cannot return home for the holidays. Angus (Dominic Sessa) is the last student remaining, a 15-year-old with a history of lying, defiance, and on the verge of expulsion. The other holdover member is Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) as the kitchen staff forced to feed them, a woman whose own adult son recently died in Vietnam. The teacher and student butt heads as they try and co-exist without other supervision, eventually connecting once they lower their defenses and attempt to see one another as flawed human beings with real hurts and disappointments. It’s a simple movie about three different characters from very different experiences pushing against one another and finding common ground. It’s a relationship movie that has plenty of wry humor and strong character beats from debut screenwriter David Hemingson. There may not be a larger theme or thesis that emerges, but being a buddy dramedy about hurt people building their friendships is still a winning formula with excellent writing, directing, and acting working in tandem, which is what we have with The Holdovers. It’s a slice of-life movie that makes you want bigger slices, especially for Mary’s character who thought having her son attend the same prep school would set him up for a promising future (he was denied college admission and thus deferral from the draft). It’s a beguiling movie because it’s about sad and lonely people over the holidays, each experiencing their own level of grief, and the overall feel is warm and fuzzy, like a feel-good movie about people feeling bad. That’s the Alexander Payne effect, finding an ironic edge to nostalgia while exploring hard-won truths with down-on-their-luck characters. The Holdovers is an enjoyable holiday comedy with shades of bitterness to go along with the feel-good uplift. It’s Payne’s Christmas movie and that is is own gift to moviegoers.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
As an elder millennial, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a formative franchise for me. I grew up on the cartoon, got the toys for Christmas, died endlessly during the shockingly hard underwater stage of their Nintendo video game, and generally have a soft spot in my 80s nostalgia for the likes of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, plus their surrogate father, Master Splinter. Apparently Seth Rogen felt the same way, and he and his writing partner Evan Goldberg have spearheaded a new animated variation of TMNT that just so happens to also be co-written and directed by the man behind my favorite film of 2021, The Mitchells vs. The Machines. It was a recipe to guarantee my personal enjoyment, and Mutant Mayhem thusly delivered. The biggest selling point for me was how lovingly realized the “teenage” part of the title was, getting a foursome of actual adolescents to portray our heroes, and using high school experience about acceptance and fitting in as effective and even poignant parallels. I loved just hanging out with these characters, who view their surrogate dad (voied by Jackie Chan) with a mixture of love and embarrassment, and who want to be accepted by a world predisposed to finding them monstrous. Naturally, becoming crime-fighting heroes is their best method for winning over the public, with a young and aspiring journalist April O’Neil (The Bear‘s Ayo Edebiri) hoping to improve her own social standing at school by breaking the existence of these unknown mutants. The comedy is robust and layered while allowing for nice character details and moments, giving each turtle their own satisfying arc. The action is fun and inventively staged while still being thematically relevant. The vocal cast is great, and the young actors are tremendous together, sparking an enviable improvisational energy that made me smile constantly. The art style has an intentional messiness to it, like smeared colored pencil drawings, and the imperfections are themselves part of the vast visual appeal. It’s a family movie that will succeed with old fans and new, and Mutant Mayhem is the best film depiction yet of the famous heroes in a half-shell.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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The Fabelmans (2022)
Steven Spielberg has been the most popular film director of the last fifty years but he’s never turned the focus squarely on himself, and that’s the draw of The Fabelmans, a coming-of-age drama that’s really a coming-of-Spielberg expose. The biographical movie follows the Fabelman family from the 1950s through the late 60s as Sammy (our Steven Spielberg avatar) becomes inspired to be a moviemaker while his parents’ marriage deteriorates. As a lifelong lover of movies and a childhood amateur filmmaker, there’s plenty here for me to connect with. The fascination with recreating images, of chasing after an eager dream, of working together with other creatives for something bigger, it’s all there and it works. I’m a sucker for movies about the assemblage of movie crews, those found families working in tandem. However, the family drama stuff I found less engaging. Apparently Sammy’s mother (Michelle Williams) is more impulsive, spontaneous, and attention-seeking, and may have some un-diagnosed mental illness at that, whereas his father (Paul Dano) is a dry and boring computer engineering genius. I found the family drama stuff to be a distraction from the storylines of Sammy as a budding filmmaker experimenting with his art and Sammy the unpopular new kid at high school harassed for being Jewish. There are some memorable scenes, like a girlfriend’s carnal obsession with Jesus, and a culmination with a bully that is surprising on multiple counts, but ultimately I found the movie to be strangely remote and lacking great personal insight. This is why Spielberg became the greatest filmmaker in the world? I guess. I’ll credit co-writer Tony Kushner (West Side Story, Lincoln) for not making this what too many modern author biopics have become, a barrage of inspirations and connections to their most famous works (“Hey Steven, I want you to meet our neighbor, Ernest Thalberg, or E.T. as we used to call him back at Raiders U.”). The Fabelmans is a perfectly nice movie, with solid acting, and the occasional moment that really grabs hold of you, like a electrifying meeting with a top Hollywood director in the film’s finale. For me, those moments were only too fleeting. It’s a family drama I wanted less family time with and more analysis on its creator.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Donnie Darko (2001) [Review Re-View]
Originally released October 26, 2001:
Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is your normal malcontent teenager in late 1980s Reagan America. He bickers with his older sister, worries over the right moment he’ll kiss his new girlfriend, and tries to ignore the advice of many imprudent adults. Donnie’s your typical teenager, except for his imaginary friend Frank. Frank is a sinister looking six-foot tall rabbit that encourages Donnie into mischief and gives a countdown to the impending apocalypse. And I haven’t even gotten to the time travel yet.
One night as Donnie wanders from his home at the behest of Frank, an airline engine mysteriously crashes through the Darko home and lands directly in Donnie’s room. The airlines are all at a loss for explanation, as it seems no one will take responsibility for the engine or knows where it came from. Donnie becomes a mild celebrity at school and initiates a relationship with a new girl, Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone). One of his classes consists of watching videos of self-help guru and new age enlightenment pitchman Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze). His school has even, under the persistence of self-righteous pain Kitty Farmer, persuaded Cunningham to speak and try to help students conquer their “fears.”
Donnie is also seeing a therapist for his emotional problems and taking medication for borderline schizophrenia. Around this time is when Donnie starts to inquire about a strange old woman, obsess over the possibilities of time travel, as well as see weird phosphorescent pools extend from people’s chests. He also floods his school at the urging of Frank. This is no Harvey-type rabbit.
The longer Donnie Darko goes on the more tightly complex and imaginative the story gets. First time writer-director Richard Kelly has forged an excitingly original film that is incredibly engaging with charm and wit. He masterfully mixes themes of alienation, dark comedy, romance, science fiction, and a sublime satire of high school. Donnie Darko is the most unique, head-trip of a movie unleashed on the public since Being John Malkovich. Kelly has a created an astonishing breakthrough for himself and has ensured he is a talent to look out for in the future.
Gyllenhaal (October Sky) is superb as disenchanted Donnie, a Holden Caulfield for middle suburbia. His ghastly stare conveys the darkness of Donnie but his laid-back nature allows the audience to care about what could have merely been another angst-ridden teenager. Swayze is hysterical as the scenery-chewing Cunningham. The rest of the cast is mainly underwritten in their roles, including stars Drew Barrymore (who was executive producer) and ER‘s Noah Wyle, but all perform admirably with the amount they are given. Not every plot thread is exactly tidied up but this can easily be forgiven.
Donnie Darko is a film that demands your intelligence and requires you to stay on your toes, so you can forget any bathroom breaks. The film is one of the best of 2001 but also one of the funniest. You’ll be honestly surprised the amount of times you laugh out loud with this flick. The theater I saw this in erupted every half a minute or so with boisterous laughter.
Donnie Darko is a film of daring skill and great imagination. You don’t see too many of these around anymore.
Nate’s Grade: A
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
Not to sound too annoying, but I’ll cash in my hipster points here and declare that I was on the Donnie Darko bandwagon from the start. The eventual cult phenom was originally released in October 2001, mere weeks removed from 9/11, dooming its commercial appeal considering a major plot point happens to involve deadly airline debris. I was a sophomore in college across from a little indie movie theater, the Drexel, that was like a wonderful escape for a budding cinephile looking for his next fix of weird and daring movie experiences. I recall seeing the trailer for Donnie Darko and being immediately intrigued, but its release date kept bouncing back month after month until it finally opened at the Drexel in February 2002, and I was there opening day. I saw it twice, brought friends with me, and I wrote about it as one of my earliest reviews as my college newspaper’s film critic. I wanted to get the word out that this was something special. The first day it was available on DVD, I went to Best Buy looking for a copy and the store employee was deeply confused about its existence. He probably knows now, as the movie achieved cult status on DVD and became an iconic indie fixture for many a Millennial.
Revisiting the films of 2001 has been reliving many films that made such formative impacts on my life: Memento and its airtight structural sleight-of-hand, Moulin Rouge and its ambitious and messy celebration of old, new, reverent and irreverent, and now Donnie Darko (this isn’t even counting films I never wrote reviews for and thus were ineligible for this re-watch, like Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Amelie – 2001 was an excellent year at the movies). I have probably watched this movie more than any other in the 2000s, with the late exception perhaps of The Room that came on strong for me at the end. My friends and I would debate it, quote it, and work toward bringing others into the cult of Darko. Looking back now twenty years, I’m happy to report the movie’s power is still just as alluring and transcendental. What earned this movie its fawning fandom? Why did writer/director Richard Kelly, only in his early 20s, find success with his weird little indie while others went painfully ignored? I think it comes down to Kelly’s ambiguous approach, threading a delicate needle so that there are enough pieces present to put together an interpretation that can prove satisfying while personal and potentially different from your friend or neighbor with an equally valid interpretation.
What helps is that Donnie Darko doesn’t feel like it’s weird for weird’s sake, like a formless collection of strange ideas and confounding imagery operating on an unknowable surreal dream logic. What Kelly has done is mix and match parts of an intriguing apocalyptic puzzle. There’s relatable high school drama about pushing back against the hypocrites and phonies of the adult world, there’s a mystery about who or what is behind Frank the bunny, the creepy otherworldly figure serving as Donnie’s Virgil-like guide, and the character study of a lonely, troubled kid trying to find a better sense of understanding of himself, his place in the world, and his sense of what lies beyond. I could just as readily view Donnie Darko as a spiritual refresher, and I’ve always sided more with a divine interpretation than sci-fi. Donnie and his therapist talk about the question over God’s existence and Donnie says he doesn’t feel like he can get anywhere debating it, so he has simply agreed to give up. Donnie talks about dying alone and how if everyone is resigned to do so then this must be a condemnation of God. Kelly establishes these early conditions as the beginning of an arc that leads to Donnie not just accepting a messianic status but volunteering for one, dying alone but in a manner that serves as victory. This to me is why he laughs at the end after being transported back to a fateful spot. He rolls over in his bed and closes his eyes knowing an end for him is not an end but a vindication (the honking from Frank the second time serving as a “we did it” victory celebration). Through his sacrifice, the world will continue (“I hope when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.”). Through bizarre circumstances, a young man has found spiritual renewal, bringing him to a personal fulfillment as well as the larger picture of averting a looming apocalypse for a tangent world.
This has been my preferred reading of Donnie Darko, with divine forces selecting Donnie as the universe’s lone hero and mysteriously guiding him along his journey, each intervention and urging from Frank leading to the culmination of events that would convince Donnie of his duty. When Donnie is talking to Frank the bunny in an empty movie theater (playing a double feature of Evil Dead and The Last Temptation of Christ, one of my favorite jokes), he asks Frank, “Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?” Frank turns and asks, “Why do you wear that stupid man suit?” Under my interpretation, Frank is a supernatural force, call it an angel or whatever you want, but he is not human and only using the form of a doomed man as a necessary vessel. When Donnie breaks into his school and breaks the water main, under the hypnotic control of Frank’s urging, we see that the vandal has also spray-painted “They made me do it” on the school mascot. The school and police go class-by-class and have students rewrite the phrase on a chalkboard, analyzing their handwriting. Donnie’s handwriting is clearly different. Could it be that Donnie, under the influence of Frank, also wrote as him, adopting his handwriting? With that, perhaps instead of Donnie writing a would-be confession it was actually Frank. “They made me do it,” Frank writes in apology to Donnie, not just for prodding him along but ultimately for the pain and suffering the real Frank of this world will cause for Donnie. “I’m sorry that all of this has to happen to you, Donnie. It wasn’t my choice. They made me do it for their plan.” I think that’s a more intriguing examination than Donnie just saying he was told to flood the school by his imaginary friend.
This is one reason why I was not a big fan of Kelly’s eventual director’s cut DVD release in 2004, which added twenty minutes to the film and changed many edits, song choices, and special effects sequences. The director’s cut went too far for me, specifically spelling out Kelly’s vision of time travelers from the future trying to coach Donnie as their variable. Whole sections from Roberta Sparrow’s book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, were printed on screen, explicitly connecting the various pieces in a way that had previously been left as ambiguous. My disappointment with the director’s cut reminded me of the disappointment Star Wars fans felt when George Lucas went back and tinkered with the original trilogy. Lucas has said the re-releases were the films he had always intended them to be, that the earlier theatrical editions were the imperfect versions of his creative intentions. The problem is that millions fell in love with those versions of the movie, even if they were an imperfect vision of their creator. Richard Kelly always intended for the opening song to be INXS’ “Never Tear Us Apart,” but hearing that felt wrong to me after watching the same scene played to Echo and the Bunnyman’s “The Killing Moon” with the theatrical cut. Kelly’s imperfect version was the one I fell in love with, the one that spoke to me as a 19-year-old and as a 39-year-old, and that’s the one I vastly prefer.
Another reason for Donnie Darko’s success is more than likely the appeal and performance of young Jake Gyllenhaal. Over twenty years, Gyllenhaal has become one of the best actors of his generation and criminally overlooked by the Academy. He’s only been nominated for one Oscar for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain, not for 2017’s Stronger, or 2007’s Zodiac, or, most egregiously, for his hypnotically disturbing portrayal in 2014’s Nightcrawler. Gyllenhaal has mesmerized for so long and handles the many confusing aspects of Donnie with aplomb. It would be easy to play Donnie as a cliched rebellious teenager, but Gyllenhaal really digs into his questioning nature; he’s hungry for answers, desperate even, and tired of being disappointed in the adults of his life. That’s why it becomes emotionally satisfying for me when Donnie appears to achieve some semblance of answers by the end, his laughter is victorious and cathartic.
Jake Gyllenhaal is terrific but the rest of the cast is outstanding. This was the first time I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal, as Donnie’s older sister, one year before her star-making turn in 2002’s Secretary (stay tuned, 2022). Jena Malone (The Hunger Games sequels) was a remarkably downhearted presence, able to imbue teenage heartache and unease so preternaturally. Ever since her role as the snitty, judgmental gym teacher Kitty Farmer, I perk up whenever I see Beth Grant in a movie or show. To this day I still consider her wondrous line reading of, “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion” to be one of the greatest achievements in mankind’s history. Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica) has two scenes that still get me as Donnie’s mother, where she fights back tears at the suggestion of Donnie’s therapist to up his medication as doing what she thinks is right for her son, and a final scene with that same son where she responds to his query that having a “weirdo for a son” is, in fact, wonderful. The parental care and empathy that she exudes is poignant. I still laugh when Holmes Osborne, as Donnie’s father, cannot contain his inappropriate titter to hearing about his son’s vulgar outburst directed at Ms. Farmer. The adult actors (Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle) all got the bigger headlines at the time, but it’s these actors that have stayed with me the most.
With so many people being launched into success and acclaim from this movie, it’s a sad surprise that Richard Kelly himself was never able to recreate his winning alchemy. He wrote the shooting draft for 2005’s Domino, a needlessly excessive and irritating movie. His big follow-up, 2008’s Southland Tales, was a disaster at the Cannes Film Festival and Kelly cut a half-hour before it was ultimately released stateside to head-scratching. I was eagerly anticipating Southland Tales and then I watched it and minute-by-minute the sinking realization set in that this was not going anywhere and anytime soon. It was like Kelly was trying to throw every dispirit idea he ever had into one movie for fear he’d never make another. I haven’t re-watched it since and feel no need to do so. The last movie Kelly directed was 2009’s The Box, an adaption of the William Matheson short story featured on newer incarnations of The Twilight Zone. It too failed at the box-office, suffered from a confusing and muddled narrative, and from there Kelly was radioactive to Hollywood. He hasn’t a credit to his name since. With each directorial effort, you can feel Kelly trying to recreate that formula from Darko, bringing the different weird pieces and tones together by the end to form a satisfying mosaic open to interpretation. Southland and The Box both feel over-extended, strained, and cluttered with too much salient junk. I truly wish Kelly has another shot to tell a big screen story after everything he’s been through. I’m sure he has more stories to tickle our brains. Maybe he just needs an editorial guidance.
The other thing of curious note is that a sequel, S. Darko, was released in 2009 starring Donnie’s little sister Samantha, played by Daveigh Chase (The Ring). It’s not very good at all and strains to be an imitation of its predecessor, right down to Samantha having to be the sacrifice to go back in time and save her friend’s life. Kelly had nothing to do with the sequel, which was written by Nate Adkins, who would go onto create the Netflix franchise, The Christmas Prince. There is nothing of note in this cash-grab of a sequel to even reward your curiosity in watching it.
Donnie Darko was a movie I loved when I originally saw it and I’m happy so many others were able to become fans and share the good news of Darko. I’m happy this movie exists and has stuck with me all these years. It’s still transporting and invigorating and funny and soulful and tantalizing. I still love the lilt of Michael Andrews’ minimalist score. I love the scene of Donnie reaching out to Cherita Chen, the target of rampant bullying, to promise her one day everything will be better for her. I still get fascinated by the instant-iconic design of that Frank the bunny mask, an image that has lead to thousands of Halloween costume imitations. My original review was more driven by distilling its plot so that I could hook a reader into making the trip for themselves. Otherwise, my thoughts remain relative the same in twenty years of reflection. This is a gem of a movie that was never really recreated by its creator, which makes it all the more remarkable and special. If you haven’t joined the cult of Donnie Darko, there’s no time like the present, folks.
Re-View Grade: A
nathanzoebl 
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