But I watched Donnie Darko for the first time in four years over the weekend, and that 2020 viewing was also four years after my previous viewing (which was six years after the one before that). That tracks with my discovery that we -- or at least I -- tend to watch favorite movies about as often as there are Olympics or presidential elections, the most-cited example on this blog being my favorite movie of all time, Raising Arizona.
It might have been a few more years for Darko except that I also just listened to the two episodes of The Next Picture Show -- the podcast devoted to comparing a new release to a classic film that may have helped inspire it -- that dealt with Darko and I Saw the TV Glow. Now that I finally saw Glow at MIFF, I've gone back and listened to the discussion of it on three different podcasts, which I avoided at the time they were released. (And I'm glad I waited, since one of my podcasters hated this movie, and I don't know how I would have avoided having his complaints in my head when I watched it.)
On this particular podcast they liked it, with some reservations, and the whole episode devoted to Darko got the juices flowing for a rewatch. Even if that movie is more nostalgic for me than it is currently breaking my 50-year-old brain, I still love a good rewatch merely for the purposes of nostalgia.
And I did think it was worth diving into one part of the movie that had always troubled me a little bit, but I've never written about it. (Spoilers, I guess.)
In the scene where Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), under a trance, decides to burn down the house of self-help guru Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), ultimately revealing his kiddie porn dungeon to the firefighters sifting through the ashes, he's seeing a revival of Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead at the town movie theater. (The Last Temptation of Christ is also playing here, as the marquee shows us, but that would be a whole different avenue of thematic investigation.)
His girlfriend Gretchen (Jena Malone) is accompanying him, but I can't imagine she's very enthusiastic about it because she falls asleep practically during the opening credits. It's at this point that the man in the rabbit costume, Frank (James Duval), sits next to her, and he and Donnie speak to each other across her blissfully sleeping body.
Even though I've seen this movie about seven times -- I could tell you exactly, except I didn't start recording the dates of rewatches until 2006 -- I always kind of think of this as a midnight movie they attend, hence explaining that Gretchen falls asleep almost immediately. They are the only two in the theater, which also suggests that it is playing at a strange time of night. (Though maybe a midnight movie would actually attract more excited cinephiles than an 8 p.m. showing.)
Except of course it's not a midnight movie, because during this scene, director Richard Kelly cross-cuts with an event going on at the same time -- Talent Show '88, as the banner reads, which is taking place at Donnie's school and includes a performance by Donnie's sister Samantha (Daveigh Chase) and her iconic dance troupe Sparkle Motion. The rest of Donnie's family is in attendance for this, as is Cunningham, conveniently sparing him a death by flame back at his house. (Donnie's a bit of a confused kid, but he wouldn't have lit the house on fire if there were anybody in it.)
But you get the sense Donnie would only do this if he were sure he had an alibi and his tracks would be covered. If you are at the movies with your girlfriend, you have that alibi -- but in order for her not to know you disappeared for 45 minutes or more, she has to not be conscious to bear witness.
Even as deranged -- that's too harsh a word -- as Donnie is, he wouldn't assume Gretchen would sleep for the whole movie. In fact, he wouldn't assume she would sleep at all during a primetime movie that's taking place at the same time as a family-friendly high school talent show. If she did fall asleep, it might be for five minutes, and she would at least stir a few times, even if she did ultimately resume her slumber.
You might propose the theory that Gretchen did stir, and when she saw Donnie wasn't there, she assumed he was in the bathroom and nodded off again. However, she's also alone in a movie theater with a scary movie playing, so this would work for one momentary awakening maximum. If she awoke two or three more times, and Donnie still wasn't there, she'd start to freak out, especially since she's living in fear of a crazy stepfather who is on the loose after stabbing her mother.
So the only way any of this works is if Gretchen is drugged.
But who drugged her? Donnie? We know he takes medication, but the meds are meant to even him out, not put him to sleep. And there's nothing else to suggest Donnie is this kind of kid. Not only do we not have any reason to think he has access to these sorts of drugs, but he's fiercely protective of the people he loves. And he may just love Gretchen.
Plus, it doesn't seem as though this was premeditated. Frank appears to him in the theater and suggests that Donnie "Burn it to the ground." And though we know, or at least think, Frank is a projection of Donnie's overactive imagination, meaning it's something he was thinking about already, he certainly seems surprised enough to have Frank appear there next to him, at this particular moment.
So is it Frank who drugged her?
As far as we know, Frank is not seen by anyone nor can he interact with anyone other than Donnie. There is clearly something "real" about Frank in that this ends up being a real person that Donnie hasn't met yet, but at this point he is imaginary, and you can't drug someone with imaginary drugs.
The notion then is that something about this scenario causes Gretchen to become entranced, something mystical that we can't explain. There are, of course, a lot of mystical things in Donnie Darko that defy explanation, but outside of the stuff directly related to the portals and time travel, there is a real-world basis for all the film's other events. For example, Donnie ends up in strange places around his town at night, but there's a terrestrial explanation for how he got there -- he slept-walked. Or at least, walked there in a trance of his own mental creation.
There ultimately isn't likely an explanation for this, and there needn't be. Gretchen's 85-minute nap -- that's the length of The Evil Dead -- is probably more a screenwriting convenience than anything with a deeper meaning.
But one of the reasons we have favorite films is that we like to ask these questions and imagine what the answers might be.
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