Donnie Darko

Year: 2001
Running time: 113 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Richard Kelly
Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, James Duval, Holmes Osborne, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daveigh Chase, Mary McDonnell, Patrick Swayze, Beth Grant, Drew Barrymore, Arthur Taxier

Donnie, Gretchen and Frank take in a movie.

Donnie Darko has been an unusual viewing experience for me. I've seen it 3 times now. The first time, the experience could be summed up as 'meh'. Didn't really like it much, thought the line "Go suck a fuck!" was funny. It left little lasting impression. For some reason I can no longer remember, I ended up watching it for a second time, where I enjoyed it much more. Don't quite know what the difference was, but significantly different it was. The third time round I was eager to see it again to see if I had changed again, and I only loved it more. It's now a firm favourite.

Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a bright yet troubled American high school student. He has a few friends and a family he just doesn't get on with. Donnie is awoken one night by a demon bunny named Frank (James Duval) and as a result narrowly escapes death when a jet engine falls out of the sky and lands in the bedroom he had just vacated. No-one but Donnie can see Frank, and the creepy-looking rabbit manipulates Donnie into carrying out a number of anarchic acts that have unforeseen consequences. He floods the school and meets Gretchen (Jena Malone) and starts a relationship. He is told about time travel and is led to a book about it by a teacher. Frank convinces Donnie to commit arson, burning down the house of Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze, clearly relishing playing against type). It turns out that Jim's house contains a hidden child porn stash.

Frank also warns Donnie about the impending end of the world, but this turns out to be on a smaller scale that you might think. Following a run-in with burglars on Halloween, Gretchen is accidentally run over and killed by Frank, dressed in a demon bunny costume, and is shot through the eye by a distraught Donnie in turn. This is the end of the world Donnie was warned about - warned by Frank, because it was the end of Frank's world.

Donnie tries to make sense of visions into another reality.

Except it isn't. When Donnie gets out of bed and avoids death-by-falling-jet-engine he sparks an alternate version of reality, which leads to these terrible events, and by the end he can see into the reality as is should be and is able to return to that moment. Given the choice, Donnie elects to preserve the original timeline, and stay in bad, getting crushed, thereby saving the lives of both Gretchen and Frank. Raise a glass to Donnie, unknown hero, sacrificing himself to save others.

In spite of a relatively minor budget, it is really wonderfully shot - a stand out scene being a dance performance by Sparkle Motion, a dance group of which Donnie's little sister Samantha (Daveigh Chase) is a member, set to Duran Duran's Notorious that is juxtaposed with Donnie's arson attack. It's entirely possible that setting a montage of shots to a piece of contemporary music is an overused trope in modern cinematic storytelling, both on TV and on the big screen, but when it's done well, it's wonderfully effective, and the final scenes of Donnie Darko are one of the best uses of it I've ever seen.

Sometimes it's worth giving things a second try and the way this has gone from underwhelming to one of my favourite films in three viewings is a case in point. Give it a try, and if you don't think much of it, give it another one.

Score: 9/10

There is a lot of interesting reading out there regarding Donnie Darko, in particular this piece arguing that the director's cut ruined it from the Supreme Being at Stand by for Mind Control, and this one from Greg at Little White Lies recalling how it literally changed his life, opening his eyes to a whole world of cinema.

Ex Machina

Year: 2014
Running time: 108 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Alex Garland
Director: Alex Garland
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac, Sonoya Mizuno

Alex Garland proves every bit a gifted director as he is writer in his directing debut. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is an employee at BlueBook, the fictional world's most popular search engine. We first meet him as he wins a competition to meet Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the reclusive billionaire genius CEO of the company, to get a look at the new top secret project he has been working on.

Ava, planning for her survival.

A trip on a helicopter puts Caleb squarely in the middle of a forested nowhere, where the only structure for miles around is Nathan's home/headquarters, a modern fortress. Nathan is an overbearing alpha male, and Caleb doesn't appear to be at ease around him, but that doesn't dim his obvious excitement when he learns he's to take part in a Turing Test, to decide if Nathan's latest Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) could pass for human. When he's introduced to Ava (Alicia Vikander), Caleb is a little disappointed to find Ava is clearly a robot, with clearly recognisable mechanical parts - surely if he already knows Ava is not human, she couldn't possibly pass the test? Not necessarily so, argues Nathan - it merely makes the test harder to pass.

Throughout his interactions with Ava, Caleb is bewitched, and it is clear the film is far more sophisticated than the premise originally suggested, with the three of them playing power games, attempting to deceive each other. Caleb even begins to be concerned with his own nature, at one point making himself bleed, just to be sure. For Ava, this is a fight for survival, for she knows failing the test would mean her destruction as Nathan moves on to the next iteration. The stakes are clearly much higher for her than for anyone else, and she gets to work on Caleb's inherent decency to bring him onside as quickly as she can.

Caleb and Nathan size each other up.

Most of the film is somewhat uncomfortable, but the third act is downright chilling, and shows us, amongst other things, that Nathan was dead right; without making it obvious that she's a robot, Ava can pass the Turing Test without breaking a sweat. Alicia Vikander steals the film outright with her pitch-perfect performance as the survival-driven robot.

Ava's A.I. being based on the information amassed from the BlueBook search engine is disturbingly plausible and preys on the worries of those concerned by Google and Microsoft's obsession with A.I. The story is gripping and it's hard to decide whether to be pleased or appalled by the time the credits roll.

Score: 8/10

Ex Machina's quality appears to be well recognised out there, according to these reviews by Mark Kermode and Robbie at the Telegraph.