Now, here’s a movie that splits people right down the center. Depending on who you ask (or is that “whom”?) Donnie Darko is either the Greatest Frickin’ Indie Movie Ever Made (roundly trouncing the former champion Clerks) or the most pretentious piece of overhyped crap ever shat into civilization.*

*[One can only hope we can keep the latter camp away from Waking Life for as long as possible.]

I was about to type, “Which is the Truth?” Then I realized that was the wrong question. “Which is the Truth?” *phew* The only way to answer that is to watch the damn thing yourself. The real question is, should you even bother?

After all, this is one of those Independent Movies isn’t it? Some artsy-fartsy mess about gay cowboys eating pudding while they muse over the mysteries of the Universe. Probably has the name of an A (or at least B)-list star underneath the Producer credit. Bet it’s written and directed by some hot-shot little nobody from one of those damned middle states that you fly over every day between your corporate offices in San Diego and your Penthouse Apartment at the Dakota in New York.

Or not.

In any case, yes this is the debut from writer/director Richard Kelly. And, yes this was Drew Barrymore’s pet project. The First Great Love of My Life, apparently compelled to assert Herself as a Serious Actress*, also sullied Her grace by co-staring as our hero’s English teacher. But we’ll get to Drew later.

*[This despite the fact that I, along with millions of her other fans, took both Charlie’s Angels movies very seriously.]

I have only this to say to you now: It’s not like this is a bad movie. We’ve seen much worse. But while it avoids the usual pitfalls of this type of production, it manages to run headlong into it’s own happy viper’s nest. What’s more, Director Kelly seems completely oblivious to what is perhaps the worst kind of plotting oversight you can possibly make.

We open as our titular character (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes to find he’s sleepwalked his way to The Mountain. (I know, I know, ten seconds into things and we’re already talking about Biblical symbolism--I didn’t make the movie, I’m just watching it.) You see, Mr. Darko is a trouble young man. And if you thought that was tough in the 90s…well, you’re right. But a few well-placed props (and the helpful title card which also serves as our Ticking Clock) firmly establish that this is 1988. We spend some time with Donnie and his functional-as-it-ever-gets family as they discuss politics over dinner. Nothing much to report yet. These first few scenes are nothing but set up.

Things pick up after the Family todders of to sleep. Donnie, guided by a disembodied voice, sleepwalks all the way to the local golf course, where he meets his newest friend, Frank—a giant evil bunny rabbit from the future who claims the world will end in “twenty-eight days, six hours, forty-two minutes, twelve seconds.”

The next morning, Donnie wakes to find his house impaled during the night by a jet engine. Had Donnie not been “sleep golfing”, he would’ve met with an ooy-gooy end. Daddy Darko (Holmes Osborne) signs a gag order with the FAA…but that’s just a formality, really. No one knows where the engine really came from. Or where the rest of that plane might’ve landed.

The rest of the picture follows Donnie as he (along with the rest of us) struggles to find out just what the hell is going on here as Frank’s deadline slowly approaches. Like any of us, his next twenty-eight days are a mixed bag of good and bad. He meets a nice girl name Gretchen (Jena Malone), hangs out with his buds, floods the high school in the middle of the night…life goes on.

But all is not well in Donnie’s little world. Frank the bunny keeps making his unsettling presence known. And the only person to who knows of Donnie’s lupine liaisons—his therapist (Katherine Ross)—begins to suspect Donnie is suffering from schizophrenia.

Yet, for some damned reason, the movie completely ignores this far more plausible (and much more easily explainable) Reason Behind All of This Weirdness. Instead, Richard Kelly decides to go for the surrealist, so hippy-hop onto the train folks. This one’s bound for Dahli-wood.

There are no melting clocks in Donnie Darko, but this movie’s got plenty of weirdness in its own right. If Frank the Rabbit doesn’t creep you out, then you’re either too doped or not doped enough. To say nothing of the movie’s constant references to metaphysics, time travel and what Joss Whedon calls “The Sky Bully.” Seriously, these things fly like bullets, and there’s this constant sense that Kelly is trying to beat us over the head with just how damn smart he is.

One keeps expecting all of this to wrap itself up in a nice, logical conclusion. Something you can take home to mamma. Well, congratulations, hippie. You just stumbled over this movie’s singular problem.

Early in the film, after Frank tells Donnie when the world will end, Our Hero fires of the question that’ll be on all our minds: Why?

Donnie Darko shoots itself in the foot by failing to answer this question. Never once within the movie proper is a concrete explanation for all this madness put forth. I’ve seen movies come up with some really retarded answers to the big Why?, but Donnie Darko marks the first movie I’ve seen that completely fails to answer it all together.

Oh, sure, you could write the whole thing off as a schizoid fever dream, but even that explanation is dashed thanks to a strategic scene removal. The thing that really infuriates about this movie is its almost coy sense of story telling. Instead of having Donnie (or someone…hell, anyone) verbalize some probable solution to this, we watch as he follows seemingly random clues to a well-done, but extremely confusing end.

Don’t be mistaken. There is a Reason for all this…or, I should say, Richard Kelly intended to present for all this. Unfortunately, I had to figure this out on my own after reading the Donnie Darko book, and tromping my way through the Flash-maze that is donniedarko.com.

Don’t know about you, but I don’t usually have to work this hard to figure a movie out. I think I’ve done it, but the key word there is think. Kelly calls this a science fiction story, so whatever. He made it and he can call it a feature-length digression on feminist volleyball. Doesn’t make a wit of difference in the end.

Again, not that this is a bad movie. It’s chock full of the nuggety goodness that I usually enjoy. Decent writing, good score, great production design…and a nice cast, too boot. Jake Gyllenhaal does a good turn as Donnie. It’s rare to see an actor play such an across-the-board role these days. Rarer still that said actor pulls things off for an entire picture. But Gyllenhaal never goes over the top and through him the movie’s tone remains grounded. Whatever the hell you think is going on, it’s serious business and he takes Donnie Darko very seriously. Our Hero does some strange things during his Journey. Thanks to Jake-o’s human reaction to this all this strange things remain believable, if a little incomprehensible.

Then there’s Our Girl Drew, in a rare appearance with Her natural hair color. Even She manages to avoid the semi-comatose clock punching most young actresses usually adopt for these roles. I could say more about Her, but the fact that my mother also happens to be an English teacher is threatening to bring up all sorts of freaky Oedipal issues.

Other standouts include Patrick Swayze as the double-faced motivational speaker Jim Cunningham. Beth Grant does a great job as the buttoned-down Home Ec. Teacher Kitty Farmer. Even Jena Malone does a nice turn as the Love Interest.

You know, come to think about it, this is one of those interesting times when no one performance stands out as a glaring negative. Everyone on screen does their jobs very well and the entire picture moves very smoothly as far as they are concerned. If the movie did away with all the faux quantum mechanics and chose to focus on these people, Donnie Darko would’ve been written off as an interesting, if decidedly odd, coming of age film.

Then again, when you watch this movie for the first time, its almost impossible to avoid getting sucked in by the escalating strangeness. There’s very little pay off (unless you plan to invest a whole lot more than an hour and fifty-three minutes), but the ride itself is quite a trip. The first time around.

Repeat viewings my dull this movie’s edge, but isn’t that always the case? And, anyway, there’s no denying that Donnie Darko is far more ambitious (and a lot more entertaining) than any of the thousand gay-cowboys-n’-pudding indies you’ll find on the market. In the final summation, what we have here is a very decent movie, made by very serious professionals with an interesting central premise.

Too bad nobody found the time to discuss that premise in the picture.