Much of it is about quantum relativity’s effect on time and our inability to truly understand it…I think. A lot has been written and debated about since its premier regarding what the hell is really going on with this film. Details and dialogue have been carefully picked over as much as anything since the unseen contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction (1994). Richard Kelly’s movie is a cult mystery, for sure.

But interpreting the fine, specific details doesn’t trouble me at all. Just like the contents of said briefcase, not everything needs to be specifically explained in order to appreciate the overall effect. Kelly carefully utilizes thoughtful dialogue and dream-like imagery throughout the film to help us understand that what we are witnessing is not, after all, a standard story but rather an emotional journey which culminates in one young man’s simple, joyous choice to just stay in bed.

These characters are not your typical teenage coming-of-age types. In October of 1988, Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an emotionally troubled high schooler who, after a near-death experience, suffers what at first seems to be deeper psychological problems but may actually be a burgeoning awareness of space-time reality. Or maybe both, I don’t know for sure, but that’s okay. His reality, or at least his sense of it, seems to both unravel and coalesce at the same time.

Most troubling are his visions of a six foot rabbit which Donnie names Frank (James Duval). The rabbit informs Donnie the end of world is coming and tells him exactly when it will happen. During the waiting Donnie meets his girlfriend, Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone); encounters a motivational speaker, Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), whose own motivations may be suspect; reads a book, “The Philosophy of Time Travel” by Roberta Sparrow (Patience Cleveland) a.k.a. Grandma Death, whom he later meets.

All of this works because Kelly creates such a specific, vivid tone with the look and feel of the film. The way Donnie’s parents (Mary McDonnell & Holmes Osborne) react to him and his behavior gives the audience not only this curious and supportive tone, but also further understanding of Donnie himself. They react not in typical movie-parent ways, but as actual family to this boy whom they love and support. They worry about him, but also try to help him however they can which is exactly how I felt about Donnie watching this film.

In the end that choice I mentioned, of Donnie choosing to stay in bed, is a lot more heroic and cathartic than it sounds on paper. A lot of consequences and lives, including Frank’s and Gretchen’s, are at stake. And Frank’s true identity…well, it all just feels like it makes sense. I can’t draw a line from point A to point Z, but I know how I felt when it was all over and the soundtrack played the great “Mad World.”

I felt elated and also knowingly sad. It’s truly a unique, compelling, affecting film.

I majored in creative writing and spent countless hours in front of a keyboard, in classes, in workshops, and reading my peers’ works just as they read mine. One of my fellow students, whose name now escapes me, had the most extraordinary natural talent with words. Some of his sentences were sublime in their structure. Yet all he wrote about was, frankly, pornographic and he envisioned himself a literary pornographer, if such a thing exists. I envied how he wrote, but not what he wrote about in his stories which, I suppose, is why I never felt any jealousy towards him. I admired his talent, but never understood what he used it for those years ago.

Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), on the other hand, lives in a cesspool of jealousy, bathing in it and showering it towards not only Mozart (Tom Hulce) and his talent but also towards God and His apparent favors. The truly unforgivable part is that Salieri, at least within the film, is a contemporary of Mozart’s and will never equal the genius of Amadeus himself. Who could? And while he receives accolades and compliments from Emperor Joseph (Jeffrey Jones), deep down Salieri knows he is just not as good as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He is aware of his comparable mediocrity and cannot, or actually will not, reconcile his hard work and reasonable talent with the artistic watermark embodied in Mozart.

And then there is God, an unseen but ever present character in Foreman’s perfect film. In return for musical talent and recognition, Salieri has made a vow of chastity with God. He believes his carnal sacrifice will ensure his musical genius. It does not. Mozart, as portrayed in the film, is a hard-drinking, over-sexed, immature, hedonistic genius whose innocent, pure love of music redeems his soul. Salieri loves music as well, just listen to his dialogue throughout the film as he describes notes, crescendos, and true emotional connections with the notes on his pages.

Salieri loves Mozart’s music while despising the flesh and blood man who wrote it. The film is a complex and truly moving deconstruction of the desires of the flesh versus fulfillment of the spirit. F. Murray Abraham’s layered characterization is a forever performance. Similar to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” with Van Helsing, he plays the main character with all the exposition and dialogue but is not the titular character, which is the point. His is the real story being told, but he is not the one the audience is supposed to remember.

And all he every really wanted was to be remembered. (Now, insert Amadeus’ cackle here).