A Twisted Walk Through Time

So, you’ve seen “Donnie Darko,” right? No? Oh boy, brace yourself. This film twists your mind like a Rubik’s Cube tossed down a ski slope in Åre. Directed by Richard Kelly, “Donnie Darko” is like if Ingmar Bergman decided to take a whole bunch of American suburban angst and just… run wild with it. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, who’s basically a baby-faced enigma here, this movie will have you questioning whether time travel is a science or just some hocus pocus nonsense.

You know, the first time I watched it, I had just returned home from a chilly October night out in Stockholm. I remember shivering in my apartment—wearing wool socks, mind you. The film started, and there’s this giant creepy rabbit whispering secrets. Talk about unsettling! It was like diving headfirst into a dream, and not the comforting kind where you’re floating away in Vänern. More like you’re plummeting into a rabbit hole, literally.

And Drew Barrymore! She’s in there too. Plays a teacher who might’ve been my favorite if I’d had her back in gymnasiet. The film dances around mental illness, fate, and wormholes—sort of like a smörgåsbord of existential dread. I can’t decide if its genius or just a brilliant mess.

The soundtrack’s an eerie bonus, full of ’80s hits like “Mad World,” echoing nostalgia for a time most Swedish kids recall through their parents’ cassette tapes. Did it all make sense? Maybe not. But life’s not always a well-dubbed melodrama either.

But here’s the real thing, maybe it’s all about the way it nudges you to look inside yourself and consider—what if something like that happened to me? Or why Frank, that rabbit, felt ominously familiar, like a lurking shadow on a long walk through Södermalm one foggy night.

Check the trailer below