- Registrado
- 1 de Jul, 2025
Was kind of surprised to find no one had ever posted about Donnie Darko. Its getting that time of year again, and I know some of you are going to be in the mood at watch DD since it takes place in October. Its also a mood film, whatever your thoughts are on the plot.
I recently rewatched it after rereading an explanation of the plotline. I'd thought I had it figured out already but not so. Richard Kelly, the man behind the film, has admitted the movie intentionally leaves questions unanswered so there'll always be room for interpretation. First time I saw this was on VHS at a friends house in like 2004-2005 and I didn't think much of it. Granted, this was a "party house" kind of place, not a great venue for watching a heavy film like DD.
Years later I watched it again and like many found something strangely attractive about it. Kelly nailed making a lovely looking nostalgia film, the cast is solid throughout and a few scenes have real holding power. After watching I went and listened to the music that was playing in the theater scene, a very haunting melody called For Who The Bell Tolls. I read through the comments on youtube and many people said this was their favorite scene of all movies. Thats a big claim, but I don't doubt it. Its that elusive attraction pulling them in.
DD is a coming of age film mixed with scifi, but in a rare twist its a time travel story that incorporates religious elements. It debuted weeks after September 11, 2001, leading to poor box office numbers probably because audiences weren't in the mood for a movie with a creepy rabbit poster that revolved around a jet engine falling onto a house. Fortunately the film gained a cult following and played in some New York theaters midnight show for like 2 years straight.
I bet kiwi has some strong opinions on this film so I'd love to have a discussion.
From this point onward I'll be discussing the plot elements. I'm not going to spoiler tag everything so if you haven't seen the film and care about such things don't read onwards.
The Plot. WTF happened?
I, like many viewers, assumed the film was a temporal paradox loop similar to the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect." (Ship and crew caught in a repeating time loop until they figure out the proper solution to break free.) From what I've read this is a common misconception about DD. Why? Well, we know theres a tangent universe, a similar concept to a time loop, and some of the characters are "manipulated dead" which would make sense assuming we're seeing the spirits of the deceased from previous time loops.
This is in fact incorrect and violates one of the major plot points mentioned in the book, Philosophy of Time Travel. The tangent universe (TU) in DD is not isolated from the primary universe (PU) like the timeline in "Cause and Effect" is. In DD the TU will eventually cause a black hole that will destroy the PU as well. So we have a ticking clock situation suggesting a repeating time loop situation is not even possible.
The suggestion to understanding this is often reminding the viewer the movie begins in the TU. We only see the PU at the very end and even then only for a few minutes.
The other misconception is that the TU is because Donnie doesn't die, he escapes the falling engine at the beginning. This is also incorrect. We're never told why the TU begins aside from the line in the Philosophy Of Time Travel mentioning that natural disasters happen in the 3rd dimension all the fucking time and sometimes it fucking happens in the goddamn 4th one. The lynchpin is the jet engine. Apparently you shouldn't have 2 of any identical object in the TU or it fucks everything up. The engine is obviously the object and the movie revolves around Donnie learning how to send it back in time to the PU.
That is admittedly kind of lame. The great news is it still managed to be a memorable film despite such a weak plot element. Like, why can we have 2 identical objects in the PU but not a TU. The TU doesn't begin when a "copying error" produces the 2nd engine since we see Donnie in the TU for a little bit the day before the engine falls on his room. Franks there to lure him out specifically to save him from being crushed so he can send a mint condition jet engine back in time (you'd think they'd ground all similar aircraft until they figured out WTF caused a mystery engine to appear from one by whateva.)
Other elements that caused me to think the time loop was happening was the manipulated living acting so strangely, as if they've experienced the events so many times it was 2nd nature to them... ie... rehearsed. This can also be explained by the proper theory; the manipulated living are subconsciously guiding Donnie in order to save themselves from being destroyed by the PU collapsing. Its also suggested that God is moving everyone along predetermined paths, free will being discussed by the characters in the film itself.
But theres even an in universe explanation of sorts if you watch closely. Drew Barrymore plays the English teacher who has Gretchen choose her seat based on who she thought was the cutest boy in the class. This is one of the first very unusual, even inappropriate, things we see a manipulated living do. She does this subconsciously because she needs Donnie to fall in love to lock in the ensurance trap. However, at the end of the film when everyones waking up from the TU we see the professor guy in bed with Drew Barrymore. They'd obviously been knocking boots the whole time. Perhaps she had been in a flirty mood that day because she'd hit it off with this dude a few days earlier. Lovers in love nudging youngin's in the right direction?
We even see that in Professor dudes class Donnie and Gretchen pair up on a project. They were already dating by this point but it's safe to assume the PU was ensuring Donnie and Gretchen had multiple contact points so they'd hook up. Awesome.
Donnie explorers his powers with the help of Frank throughout the film. He floods the school using his power to control water, buries an axe in a bronze statue with his increased strength, and later sets fire to Patrick Swazeys mansion revealing the dude was a pedo (the character not the real PS.) Flooding the schools allows Donnie to advance his relationship with the girl he knows thinks he's cute. The fire causes his mom to end up taking his sisters dance team to Talent Search on the plane that the engine falls from. I suspect this, while not mentioned, is intentional because those closest to the living receiver (Donnie) help him tune into stuff thats closeby. Donnie couldn't have ever been on the plane so having his mother, a blood relative, onboard gave his soul or whatever direct access to the plane itself. A spiritual homing beacon if you will.
The one plot hole I wondered about with this "one and done" TU system is how could the manipulated dead like Frank appear to Donnie in a metaphysical sense prior to their death within the TU? This is the one I'm not sure about.
1) Maybe its because spirits free of their physical form can move throughout the TU timeline, they are themselves the time traveler. My rationale for this is that the spiritual-plane of existence seems to only allow physical objects to move backwards through time with the use of a portal. This suggests those in this spirit world exist independently of the flow of time (otherwise the portal couldn't connect to the past.) They can't directly influence physical objects, otherwise they'd move the engine themselves. And we see that the spirits/God manipulated people instead with the chest portals.
2) It could also be that the manipulated dead are engaging with Donnie prior to their deaths. Frank only appears to Donnie at night, perhaps the alive Frank was asleep during these times and somehow his soul was communicating and manipulating Donnie prior to his death.
3) Manipulated dead exist backwards in the TU. We stop seeing Frank once he's killed by Donnie. His mission is accomplished. In a way his characters narrative runs backwards; we're introduced to his ghost and when we meet the real person its upon his exit.
4) The real, alive Frank is sneaking around town fucking with Donnie the whole time prior to his death. God's rucking with his head or something we aren't seeing and most of the times we see Frank its literally the guy thats later shot. This doesn't explain why Frank in the theater has a fucked up eye or why he does a few "quick flash" appearances to Donnie. Maybe its a mix of Donnie being legit schizo and Frank fucking with him to save the universe??
Problem is Gretchen is likely a manipulated dead as well, but maybe not. If she is perhaps her alternative spirit is just helping set herself up with Donnie as well. A sort of cosmic backup plan. We never see her in a ghost form but whose to say the manipulated dead all have to appear in such fucked up ways. Frank was a teenager with a dark sense of humor, perhaps he decided to appear as he did for the fun, the Lolz of it all.
Gretchen could also be a manipulated living who just happens to die. I know that contradicts the concept of manipulated living and manipulated dead but in theory anyone alive for most of the TU is both. Its not in the film but fans say that PS kills himself a couple weeks after waking up in the PU. He burns his CP stash and shots himself on the golf course. In the TU he is arrested but as far as we know he never kills himself, unless he eventually pulled an Epstein once he was exposed. The point is we can assume there were other potential manipulated dead in the TU and possibly in the PU (even though I guess thats excluded) but Donnies mom and sister likely died on the plane when the engine came off so wtf?
There are likely some plot holes in the story. Time travel plots tend to have a few.
So eventually Donnie realizes he is loved, experiences love and loss, even finds out about the rando "Chut Up!" who had a crush on him (unrequited love but reversed thus reinforcing that he is in fact loved) These are the important elements of a coming of age story, right, or atleast of Donnies. Heart broken he now has no choice but to fix the TU before it self destructs and on top of that he's a murderer and he also happens to know how to use all his super powers to send the engine back.
So why did Donnie choose to die? He didn't. He woke up back in the PU and like the others he thought he'd had a very strange and vivid dream. He went back to bed, not taking the threat of a jet engine falling on him seriously since it was a fucked up dream and is then ironically killed by it. Its also possible he did have to die, though. In the Philosophy Of Time Travel its mentioned other people in similar situations through history; some ancient dude getting killed by an arrow seemingly shot from no where with no enemy nearby, a knight that feel on a sword he'd yet to make. Its possible the object is just naturally linked to the receiver so Donnie was the fixed point of the portal. He was gonna catch the engine no matter what.
Why did Patrick Swayze do it? I dunno man, that bummed me out. PS is awesome. Sucks he was a pederaste but at least in the TU rich pederastes get justice.
Does Gretchen die in the PU? Probably. That stepdad sounds like a freak. I bet he hunts them both down kn the PU and stabs them up. That or that godawful Seth Rogan kills her. He's the actual villain of the film and my personal fan theory is the TU is all Seth Rogans fault. Goddamn jews.
...
Richard Kelly would eventually go on to write Southland Tales, which explores similar ideas like 2 of something existing at the same time and how pissed off God would be about that. Southland Tales is a whole nother can of worms though and doesn't have the cult following DD has. Richard Kelly would go on to try and make other movies, being encouraged by other successful directors, until one day he vanished into thin air or maybe a water portal or maybe he touched an indentical verision of himself from the past/future and they cancelled each other out... who knows? He doesn't make movies anymore is all thats important.
In the directors cut of DD he added pages from the Philosophy of Time Travel which helped explain things. Originally he had a website you were suppose to visit prior to seeing the film that had the book pages and this was suppose to help guide you through the movie. A novel concept at the time. Unfortunately that whole 9/11 thing probably made most people uninterested in his new experimental form of multimedia story telling. He did something similar with Southland Tales (an accompanying comic book series that setup the movie) and it failed pretty miserably too.
Maybe its for the best he vanished into another dimension or something. Maybe we're in the wrong one and he's found a place where its totally normal and loved to leave out big chunks of a movies plot and force the audience to research the hell out of it before seeing it. I hope he's found peace there.
I recently rewatched it after rereading an explanation of the plotline. I'd thought I had it figured out already but not so. Richard Kelly, the man behind the film, has admitted the movie intentionally leaves questions unanswered so there'll always be room for interpretation. First time I saw this was on VHS at a friends house in like 2004-2005 and I didn't think much of it. Granted, this was a "party house" kind of place, not a great venue for watching a heavy film like DD.
Years later I watched it again and like many found something strangely attractive about it. Kelly nailed making a lovely looking nostalgia film, the cast is solid throughout and a few scenes have real holding power. After watching I went and listened to the music that was playing in the theater scene, a very haunting melody called For Who The Bell Tolls. I read through the comments on youtube and many people said this was their favorite scene of all movies. Thats a big claim, but I don't doubt it. Its that elusive attraction pulling them in.
DD is a coming of age film mixed with scifi, but in a rare twist its a time travel story that incorporates religious elements. It debuted weeks after September 11, 2001, leading to poor box office numbers probably because audiences weren't in the mood for a movie with a creepy rabbit poster that revolved around a jet engine falling onto a house. Fortunately the film gained a cult following and played in some New York theaters midnight show for like 2 years straight.
I bet kiwi has some strong opinions on this film so I'd love to have a discussion.
From this point onward I'll be discussing the plot elements. I'm not going to spoiler tag everything so if you haven't seen the film and care about such things don't read onwards.
The Plot. WTF happened?
I, like many viewers, assumed the film was a temporal paradox loop similar to the Star Trek Next Generation episode "Cause and Effect." (Ship and crew caught in a repeating time loop until they figure out the proper solution to break free.) From what I've read this is a common misconception about DD. Why? Well, we know theres a tangent universe, a similar concept to a time loop, and some of the characters are "manipulated dead" which would make sense assuming we're seeing the spirits of the deceased from previous time loops.
This is in fact incorrect and violates one of the major plot points mentioned in the book, Philosophy of Time Travel. The tangent universe (TU) in DD is not isolated from the primary universe (PU) like the timeline in "Cause and Effect" is. In DD the TU will eventually cause a black hole that will destroy the PU as well. So we have a ticking clock situation suggesting a repeating time loop situation is not even possible.
The suggestion to understanding this is often reminding the viewer the movie begins in the TU. We only see the PU at the very end and even then only for a few minutes.
The other misconception is that the TU is because Donnie doesn't die, he escapes the falling engine at the beginning. This is also incorrect. We're never told why the TU begins aside from the line in the Philosophy Of Time Travel mentioning that natural disasters happen in the 3rd dimension all the fucking time and sometimes it fucking happens in the goddamn 4th one. The lynchpin is the jet engine. Apparently you shouldn't have 2 of any identical object in the TU or it fucks everything up. The engine is obviously the object and the movie revolves around Donnie learning how to send it back in time to the PU.
That is admittedly kind of lame. The great news is it still managed to be a memorable film despite such a weak plot element. Like, why can we have 2 identical objects in the PU but not a TU. The TU doesn't begin when a "copying error" produces the 2nd engine since we see Donnie in the TU for a little bit the day before the engine falls on his room. Franks there to lure him out specifically to save him from being crushed so he can send a mint condition jet engine back in time (you'd think they'd ground all similar aircraft until they figured out WTF caused a mystery engine to appear from one by whateva.)
Other elements that caused me to think the time loop was happening was the manipulated living acting so strangely, as if they've experienced the events so many times it was 2nd nature to them... ie... rehearsed. This can also be explained by the proper theory; the manipulated living are subconsciously guiding Donnie in order to save themselves from being destroyed by the PU collapsing. Its also suggested that God is moving everyone along predetermined paths, free will being discussed by the characters in the film itself.
But theres even an in universe explanation of sorts if you watch closely. Drew Barrymore plays the English teacher who has Gretchen choose her seat based on who she thought was the cutest boy in the class. This is one of the first very unusual, even inappropriate, things we see a manipulated living do. She does this subconsciously because she needs Donnie to fall in love to lock in the ensurance trap. However, at the end of the film when everyones waking up from the TU we see the professor guy in bed with Drew Barrymore. They'd obviously been knocking boots the whole time. Perhaps she had been in a flirty mood that day because she'd hit it off with this dude a few days earlier. Lovers in love nudging youngin's in the right direction?
We even see that in Professor dudes class Donnie and Gretchen pair up on a project. They were already dating by this point but it's safe to assume the PU was ensuring Donnie and Gretchen had multiple contact points so they'd hook up. Awesome.
Donnie explorers his powers with the help of Frank throughout the film. He floods the school using his power to control water, buries an axe in a bronze statue with his increased strength, and later sets fire to Patrick Swazeys mansion revealing the dude was a pedo (the character not the real PS.) Flooding the schools allows Donnie to advance his relationship with the girl he knows thinks he's cute. The fire causes his mom to end up taking his sisters dance team to Talent Search on the plane that the engine falls from. I suspect this, while not mentioned, is intentional because those closest to the living receiver (Donnie) help him tune into stuff thats closeby. Donnie couldn't have ever been on the plane so having his mother, a blood relative, onboard gave his soul or whatever direct access to the plane itself. A spiritual homing beacon if you will.
The one plot hole I wondered about with this "one and done" TU system is how could the manipulated dead like Frank appear to Donnie in a metaphysical sense prior to their death within the TU? This is the one I'm not sure about.
1) Maybe its because spirits free of their physical form can move throughout the TU timeline, they are themselves the time traveler. My rationale for this is that the spiritual-plane of existence seems to only allow physical objects to move backwards through time with the use of a portal. This suggests those in this spirit world exist independently of the flow of time (otherwise the portal couldn't connect to the past.) They can't directly influence physical objects, otherwise they'd move the engine themselves. And we see that the spirits/God manipulated people instead with the chest portals.
2) It could also be that the manipulated dead are engaging with Donnie prior to their deaths. Frank only appears to Donnie at night, perhaps the alive Frank was asleep during these times and somehow his soul was communicating and manipulating Donnie prior to his death.
3) Manipulated dead exist backwards in the TU. We stop seeing Frank once he's killed by Donnie. His mission is accomplished. In a way his characters narrative runs backwards; we're introduced to his ghost and when we meet the real person its upon his exit.
4) The real, alive Frank is sneaking around town fucking with Donnie the whole time prior to his death. God's rucking with his head or something we aren't seeing and most of the times we see Frank its literally the guy thats later shot. This doesn't explain why Frank in the theater has a fucked up eye or why he does a few "quick flash" appearances to Donnie. Maybe its a mix of Donnie being legit schizo and Frank fucking with him to save the universe??
Problem is Gretchen is likely a manipulated dead as well, but maybe not. If she is perhaps her alternative spirit is just helping set herself up with Donnie as well. A sort of cosmic backup plan. We never see her in a ghost form but whose to say the manipulated dead all have to appear in such fucked up ways. Frank was a teenager with a dark sense of humor, perhaps he decided to appear as he did for the fun, the Lolz of it all.
Gretchen could also be a manipulated living who just happens to die. I know that contradicts the concept of manipulated living and manipulated dead but in theory anyone alive for most of the TU is both. Its not in the film but fans say that PS kills himself a couple weeks after waking up in the PU. He burns his CP stash and shots himself on the golf course. In the TU he is arrested but as far as we know he never kills himself, unless he eventually pulled an Epstein once he was exposed. The point is we can assume there were other potential manipulated dead in the TU and possibly in the PU (even though I guess thats excluded) but Donnies mom and sister likely died on the plane when the engine came off so wtf?
There are likely some plot holes in the story. Time travel plots tend to have a few.
So eventually Donnie realizes he is loved, experiences love and loss, even finds out about the rando "Chut Up!" who had a crush on him (unrequited love but reversed thus reinforcing that he is in fact loved) These are the important elements of a coming of age story, right, or atleast of Donnies. Heart broken he now has no choice but to fix the TU before it self destructs and on top of that he's a murderer and he also happens to know how to use all his super powers to send the engine back.
So why did Donnie choose to die? He didn't. He woke up back in the PU and like the others he thought he'd had a very strange and vivid dream. He went back to bed, not taking the threat of a jet engine falling on him seriously since it was a fucked up dream and is then ironically killed by it. Its also possible he did have to die, though. In the Philosophy Of Time Travel its mentioned other people in similar situations through history; some ancient dude getting killed by an arrow seemingly shot from no where with no enemy nearby, a knight that feel on a sword he'd yet to make. Its possible the object is just naturally linked to the receiver so Donnie was the fixed point of the portal. He was gonna catch the engine no matter what.
Why did Patrick Swayze do it? I dunno man, that bummed me out. PS is awesome. Sucks he was a pederaste but at least in the TU rich pederastes get justice.
Does Gretchen die in the PU? Probably. That stepdad sounds like a freak. I bet he hunts them both down kn the PU and stabs them up. That or that godawful Seth Rogan kills her. He's the actual villain of the film and my personal fan theory is the TU is all Seth Rogans fault. Goddamn jews.
...
Richard Kelly would eventually go on to write Southland Tales, which explores similar ideas like 2 of something existing at the same time and how pissed off God would be about that. Southland Tales is a whole nother can of worms though and doesn't have the cult following DD has. Richard Kelly would go on to try and make other movies, being encouraged by other successful directors, until one day he vanished into thin air or maybe a water portal or maybe he touched an indentical verision of himself from the past/future and they cancelled each other out... who knows? He doesn't make movies anymore is all thats important.
In the directors cut of DD he added pages from the Philosophy of Time Travel which helped explain things. Originally he had a website you were suppose to visit prior to seeing the film that had the book pages and this was suppose to help guide you through the movie. A novel concept at the time. Unfortunately that whole 9/11 thing probably made most people uninterested in his new experimental form of multimedia story telling. He did something similar with Southland Tales (an accompanying comic book series that setup the movie) and it failed pretty miserably too.
Maybe its for the best he vanished into another dimension or something. Maybe we're in the wrong one and he's found a place where its totally normal and loved to leave out big chunks of a movies plot and force the audience to research the hell out of it before seeing it. I hope he's found peace there.
