Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is a time bending movie about a boy named Donnie who is exploring how it means and the purpose of being alive. Donnie shows symptoms of schizophrenia and envisions a large time-traveling bunny named Frank who prophets that the world was soon ending. Donnie was also troubled when Grandma Death told him the “every living creature dies alone.” Throughout the movie Donnie followed whatever Frank told him to do in order to try to find out what Frank meant by the end of the world. Donnie explored his life and love, and began uncovering facts about time and space, and ultimately how he could alter his and other people’s destiny’s.

While the movie was somewhat disturbing, and the massive bunny was frightening, I thought the movie was interesting. I think Jack Gyllenhaal’s acting of Donnie as a troubled boy was well done. I liked how the bunny was kept a mystery for a while but was unsure about why it was a scary bunny with a mask until the end of the movie. I thought it would’ve been better to see Frank’s face (with the bullet hole) the whole time, but it seems like the directors really wanted to add the fear factor of the movie. I was very confused at first as well about the time traveling aspects of the movie. I was aware of the talk about wormholes that Frank could travel through, but it was extremely difficult to understand that when Donnie drove him and his dead girlfriend who got hit by a car in a station wagon was when they time traveled. Donnie realized that no one would get hurt (Gretchen, the real Frank) or people would care for him, if he had been crushed by the jet engine (which he survived in the beginning because he followed Frank). So, Donnie went back in time by driving in the station wagon (which is a reference to Back to the Future) so that he would get hit by the engine so other people would live. At the end, Donnie gave one final laugh and rolled over to sleep, knowing he was going to die, possible because he realized that he wasn’t alone and that he knew people loved him.