Donnie Darko

(Note: This review refers to the Blu-ray version of the DVD.)

Richard Kelly's visually imaginative and intellectually challenging debut film, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a contemporary Holden Caulfield in a grim and glorious world of nightmares and dreams, was a 2001 box office flop turned home video cult phenomenon. Teens and tweens connected with its inarticulate hero, who slumps and frumps his way through the confusion of his life, and its world in which fatuous platitudes are offered in place of leadership. The underground swell in popularity inspired Kelly to revisit the film and restore scenes and ideas he cut to shorten and streamline the film for its original theatrical release. The Blu-ray debut features the original theatrical cut and the 2004 extended director's cut, with separate commentary tracks for each version. The second disc of featurettes is a standard DVD.