Culture Blues

The Instant Movie Club: S. Darko

Every week, your friends at Culture Blues get together to watch a movie from their Netflix Instant queue. Then, they put on their stupid human suits to talk about it. This is The Instant Movie Club.

This week, we’ll be discussing S. Darko, the largely ignored sequel to the cult favorite Donnie Darko. The below discussion contains spoilers.

Next Week: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The bestselling thriller gets the cinematic treatment.

Ben: When Chris Fisher decided to make S. Darko, I wonder what his motivation was. Did he think he had something to add to the first story? Was he just a huge fanboy? Did he hate the Instant Movie Club? I’d love to just ask Chris point blank, “Did you honestly believe people would like this?” If you haven’t seen the original you won’t care, and if you have you will most likely spend the hour and forty minute run time actively disliking this cinematic atrocity.

I enjoyed Donnie Darko quite a bit. I do believe that people have spent a little too much time debating the meaning of every single frame, and I do think it gets a bit too much love in some circles, but it’s a challenging and unique movie full of awesome moments and performances. Who would have known that Swayze makes a great creep? If you want to see a lot of these same moments, just re-done with an inferior cast and lazy direction, well this might be the movie for you. The closest thing S. Darko has to a performance is Samantha’s friend Corey, who is almost believable as a careless bitch whose life is turned upside down by the movie’s events (before she warps time and kills herself). Everyone else mails it in, big time. From the super nerd to the mumbling weirdo, the cast is predictable and flat. There were two moments that did genuinely surprise me. When Samantha dies halfway through I was briefly interested, but in a twist that cheapens the mythology of the first movie, playing with time seems pretty easy. The second is the headbutt, which was hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

There are several tie-ins to the first film: stuff is falling from the sky, watery goo is protruding from chests, buildings are being burned down, and we even have the bunny for seemingly no reason. The movie is littered with these things, and it creates a most bizarre paradox: how can a sequel be so unoriginal and yet be nothing at all like its predecessor?

Jeremiah: I completely disagree that S. Darko is nothing like Donnie Darko. In fact, I think the successes and problems of S. Darko pretty closely resemble those of its predecessor. Granted, here the successes are more meager and the problems are amplified, but it emulates Donnie with seemingly earnest affection. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean a whole lot in the end.

My feelings about Donnie Darko largely coincide with Ben’s. I enjoy it more as a satire of 80s suburbia and as an introduction to Jake Gyllenhaal than as a heady, fantasy tale. I’ve never really got into the wealth of extracurricular material out there analyzing the film. S. Darko seems to be made more for those people than for people like me (although if they would have enjoyed it more is a totally different question).

Daveigh Chase reprises her role as Samantha Darko and is one of only two creative links between the films (producer Adam Fields is the other). I enjoyed Chase’s performance a bit more than Ben did. Her portrayal of a damaged, introverted teenager is believable and consistent (it seems she rarely speaks without first looking down or averting her eyes some other way), but it’s also not very interesting. I found her melancholy annoying early on, but I was won over by the end (at least I started to appreciate the humor in it). I think some people may have been similarly annoyed by Gyllenhaal’s performance as Donnie in the original but I loved how he vacillated between brooding, darkly funny teenager and blossoming psychotic.

The satire of Donnie is largely missing in his sister’s tale, except in pieces lifted directly from the original (the sexually inappropriate priest mirrors Swayze’s motivational speaker pervert from Donnie a little too closely). S. Darko certainly has some nice moments of humor, largely emanating from Chase’s deadpan delivery and reactions to all the craziness around her.

As S. Darko comes up a little short in imitating the successful aspects of Donnie, it’s all too successful in reproducing its faults. Primarily, it floats along with an overwhelming lack of momentum that leaves characters and the audience just waiting for something to happen to end it all. Second, they’ve created a story that involves a whole community yet has relatively little going on and seriously lacks in the drama and intrigue departments.

S. Darko’s one big gambit to differentiate itself is forcing the Donnie character (Iraq Jack) to the background and focusing on those around him instead. In theory, I like this a lot, despite it being a very clear, almost silly attempt to make people think they’re seeing something new. It proves a mistake however, as the other characters are less interesting than the one who is having visions, making awesome rabbit masks and generally going crazy. That’s the guy I want to spend 100 minutes with.

Jeff: Considering its 1 star rating on Netflix and its universally bad reviews, I thought S. Darko was surprisingly competent. I'm not saying that I enjoyed it, or that it was good, or that it wasn't the 2nd IMC movie in a row that I've dozed off during. What I'm saying is that S. Darko was better than I expected, and endearingly sincere, so for that I'm pretty much willing to give it a pass. I think it was born from a genuine appreciation for the original and, because I’m an eternal optimist that only sees the best in people, I’m willing to buy that this wasn’t just a shameless money grab on the part of Adam Fields (because to think you could make money off Donnie Darko mythology is idiotic).  Essentially, S. Darko is the world’s first piece of $4 million fan fiction; certain to appeal only to Darko fanboys, and yet doomed to alienate those nerds because of its bumbling mediocrity and perceived illegitimacy. Congratulations though, Team S. Darko, you made a movie that I enjoyed more than Angels & Demons!

A few notes on the cast:  I’m going to disagree with Ben regarding best friend Corey (Briana Evigan), who I found to be consistently annoying and over the top in her insistent badgirlness. I was glad when the time traveling car crash killed her off. I actually liked Daveigh Chase’s performance as the pointlessly abbreviated titular character, even if she’s almost wholly irrelevant to her own movie. I didn’t even realize it was the same kid from Sparkle Motion until after the fact, which I found to be kind of cool in nerdy way. Maybe there can be more unauthorized Richard Kelly sequels with grown-up child characters. In fact, I’m going to start on my script for The Box(es) right now. Also, Daveigh Chase, if you’re reading this, it’s time to update your IMDB headshot. You were a weird looking little girl, okay?

With our two leading ladies out of the way, let’s get to the real talent in S. Darko. First, John Hawkes. What the hell is he doing here? This is a legitimately talented actor. Do you think he just needed a quick check so he signed up for the role of creepy motel guy? Or is he a big Darko fan? I mean, Hawkes isn’t a huge deal, but this is slumming even for him. On the other hand, Elizabeth Berkley as the crazy Christian lady, that makes perfect sense. She needs the work. I’d like to open up the comments section to your favorite Jessie Spano moments. Go!

Is S. Darko a shameless and brainless attempt to piggyback on the success of Richard Kelly's original, an imitation that fails to flatter, or something else entirely? What is Jessie Spano's most indelible moment? Let us hear it in the comments section below.

Next week: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Tagged as: donnie darko, evil bunny suit, richard kelly, s. darko, time travel