Stunning. I had seen it before, I knew what was coming and it still blew me away. I flinched, I more than flinched. I could hear my heart beating.
The cinema was pretty full for a movie which has been out for over a month. Not only that but judging by the conversations at the end of the movie, the majority were like me, repeat viewers. Given that I had only seen it two weeks ago, I was still completely caught up in it. I am very glad I saw it again. Being interrupted several times while watching it on a tiny shit screen on an aeroplane does not do the movie justice.
Amazing cast, Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie is superb. He carries the movie almost effortlessly. An amazing supporting cast, too many to name them all but top notch performances all round. I don’t know how to describe this movie. I’ve read many reviews and thoughts on it over the past couple of weeks and none seem to agree. It does defy classification. It has a little bit of a lot of genres and they just mesh into one thing: the movie. The only thing I have seen mentioned a couple of times is that it is comparable to Magnolia and Memento. Its kinda like them, but it is also nothing like them. Its mindbending, they all are. But they work, they reach that level where they matter. The movie is important and you actually care about what is going on.
The movie leads you to care about the characters, hell it leads you to care about the movie. When Gary Jule’s cover of Mad World kicks off, it is just such a poignant sequence. Tangent, I am chatting with a friend about the movie at the moment. I was also at keyword: dictionary looking up the correct spelling of the word poignant. Well, describing the exact same scene she just said: “it made it all the more poignant”.
That’s how the movie left me feeling and indeed I still feel: poignant.