originally posted on tumblr, Mar 25th 2026 

Movie-A-Day-Thon #30: Donnie Darko (2001)

For a movie that everyone on my age range always talks about, and with a costume so iconic, there’s very little talk about what the hell Donnie Darko even is about. So I’m gonna find out! ……Oh shit that’s over two hours.

Gotta love the first dialogue is about a conservative family berating their daughter. “Democrats gonna tax the shit out of us and then you’ll be sorry” have less money then, dumbass. At least they set up the family dynamics nicely here.

Immediately in love with the rabbit’s voice. The modulation scratches my ears so nice…

I can’t put finger on it, but this movie feels so lost in time to me. It’s set in 88, but it was made in 01, and in this weird sandwich it ends up being almost 90s flavored?? It’s a really weird vibe, but I dig it for a movie all about weird shit happening. It does capture perfectly what analog selfhelp VHS tapes were like, though, that Conquering Fear thing took me right back. The random horse neighs?? Immaculate.

I do appreciate that they paint Donnie as such an insufferable jerk in the family dynamic, but then the movie goes on and no, he’s just a total dork. Dare I say, a nerd. A far more unforgivable sin. Meanwhile every other teenager is appropriately horny and inappropriately full of slurs and violence, and thus far more insufferable. Truly a 00s movie.

I’m gonna be real, from the synopsis alone I did NOT expect a time travel plot in this. Maybe an evil alter ego plot, from the whole trouble teen with psychological issues, but not time travel. And weird pseudo-science alternate dimension time travel too, it’s almost a fantasy! And half the scenes are written so damn weird but so compelling too. Why are we talking about who fucks who in Smurfville? Why was that weird guy in the all orange sweatsuit staring at those teenagers? Why is there a CP discovery subplot in here??

What a weird fucking movie. Compels me though. /ref Haven’t seen a movie wrangle these many themes, visuals and plotlines so neatly, no scene feels out of place or irrelevant cus three scenes later, it turns out to be relevant and cutting it out would just lessen the story. Not nearly as visually weird as I expected, but the narrative more than made up for it. Watch the director’s cut like I did by the way, if you’re gonna!