What were left with is too few answers and an audience that, for some parts at least, has been struggling to hang on as if were Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I do give Kelly a little more credit after I made myself watch the deleted and extended scenes ( I don't usually do the deleted scenes thing, the didn't make the final cut of the movie therefore how important can they be?) but you could see that with the incorporation of the few short scenes deleted the story really elevates itself to a whole other level. Due to time constraints they had to be cut, but when I watched the deleted scenes with director's commentary on, you could tell he was really bummed that some of these scenes ended up being cut. That is the challenging of directing and editing, you shoot a lot of good stuff then you must decide what to keep and the film would have been much enhanced if he could have put one or two of those deleted scenes in place of other more convoluted scenes in the movie. Writing this review I face the exact same challenges as Kelly, I after taking some notes from the movie, realize that there is so much going on, so many things I can write about, but like Kelly I must make a decision to what I will keep and what I will keep out. I will now go play video games for several hours.
Donnie Darko is a film meant to border on the surreal. The haunting image of that six foot tall demonic bunny standing on Donnie's front lawn is a picture I won't soon forget and one that will probably haunt my dreams for a few more weeks. Throughout the film the audience, as well as Donnie, stand on the edge of unknowing, it's almost as if we know nothing but in the same scene we think we know everything. It is like a dream, a lucid dream where while you sleep you think its a dream, you think you know, but you have no idea, and then when you wake up you can remember everything as if it were a real memory. Kelly goes after this feeling quite effectively.
