Seeing the Light In 'Donnie Darko'

THE GREAT thing about "Donnie Darko" is how it flutters, like a mischievous butterfly, above the despairing hands of easy description.

Science-fiction noir? After all, it is – in some part – about finding time portals. Or is this movie about detached, disaffected Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) a twisted coming of age story? Or the perils of taking (or not taking) psychotropic medication? Or a liberal vision of the Reagan era, in that this 1988-set story observes the scarier side of suburbia, book-burning parents and me-first consumption?

Or maybe "Donnie Darko" is a dark inversion of the Jimmy Stewart film "Harvey." After all, like Stewart's character, the hero (or antihero) in "Darko" has an imaginary companion that happens to be a six-foot (give or take) rabbit.

Only this time, the rabbit is demonic and makes Donnie D. perform antisocial tasks in his sleep. We're talking flooding his high school and leaving an ax buried in the head of a school statue. The morning after his misdeeds, he's as shocked as anyone else to see what he (or the malevolent bunny) hath wrought.

You (and your imaginary friend) be the judge.

On his best behavior, Donnie's a difficult guy. The teenager is either uncommunicative or hostile toward his parents (Mary McDonnell and Holmes Osborne) and two younger sisters. He has no impulse control. His intelligence is intimidating. And he doesn't refrain from speaking his mind. He's on medication (the diagnosis seems to be possible schizophrenia), but he takes it sparingly.

His only allies are a new student named Gretchen (Jena Malone), whose shadowy home life makes her a guaranteed soul mate, a couple of sensitive teachers (Drew Barrymore and Noah Wyle) and a mysterious former schoolteacher, nicknamed Grandma Death (Joan M. Blair), who has written a book about time travel. It is the last who provides possible answers to the roiling questions in his head, including this head-scratcher: What are those weird transparent worms that seem to spring from everyone's chest?

"Donnie Darko," written and directed by Richard Kelly, doesn't provide easy answers to its own conundrums. But it does offer a circular narrative structure, in which Donnie gets the opportunity to redress his mistakes. And, appealingly, the movie has a certain lightness – like the aforementioned butterfly – which makes its foreboding qualities surprisingly user-friendly.

Here's an interchange between Donnie and his soon-to-be girlfriend, Gretchen.

"You're weird," says Gretchen.

"Sorry," says Donnie.

"No," she says. "That was a compliment."

And it isn't every day you get a deconstructive explanation of the Smurfs. This one, which comes from Donnie, completely stuns two fellow students. One of them looks at Donnie with disgust and says: "[Expletive] Donnie! Why do you have to get so smart on us?"

DONNIE DARKO (R, 122 minutes) – Contains drug use, obscenity and some violence. At the Cineplex Odeon Janus, Cinema Arts Theatre, Regal Cinemas Ballston Commons 12 and Countryside 20.