Donnie Darko......?

Question

An absolutely amazing film! Lots of People I speak to dont understand it and I am beginning to think maybe I got the film wrong!

What is your view and understanding of the plot?

Answer 1

i watched it and i dont understand it. it was soooo confusing

Answer 2

It's a decent film, but it bites off far more than it can chew. Within a half hour, the scenes begin to collapse under the film’s collective weight. It continues piling on themes and characters until the picture’s focus enlarges and it all becomes about much more than just Donnie. The film’s millennial tensions and ensemble angst feel lifted from P.T. Anderson’s masterpiece Magnolia, but the similarities don’t end there. The plot structure, the ominous intertitles, the motivational speaker, the musical commentary on the action (including a scene that feels like a blatant copy of Magnolia’s “Wise Up” sequence), and an ending that precipitates into the miraculous all feel cribbed. Still, there is a ton of originality in the film. Donnie Darko can get away with copying that much of its material since Kelly throws way more than that at us.

That’s really where the problems begin, though. There are at least a dozen developed characters condensed into the two hour running time. The film, which is set just prior to the 1988 election, also tries to present Donnie’s doomsday as a sort of death of America. I don’t quite understand what the director was trying to accomplish with this aspect, though I did note the flag that hangs over Donnie’s bed and the freedom of speech issues raised at Donnie’s school. I have no clue if the director wanted us to mourn the end of the Regan years or celebrate their ending. The ending of the film also presents a twist that effectively erases the catharses that the film’s events have caused several of the more prominent characters to undergo. After much effort in making these characters see the light, it all appears to have been for nothing.

A bigger problem, however, is the cast itself. Much of the casting is well done, but many of the scenes are not well acted. Magnolia, whatever its inadequacies, was clearly an actors’ showcase. Nearly every performance in that film was a powerhouse and it demonstrated Anderson was a truly great actor’s director. Donnie Darko’s performances are closer to adequate. Many scenes are effective, but an equal number of them are stilted. Only Mary McDonnell and Drew Barrymore seem consistently good. Still, despite all of this, there is a consistency of an odd, melancholy tone that is admirable in the film.

Answer 3

Unlss you've seen the extended version which includes excerpts from the book The Philosophy of Time Travel you don't have much chance really understanding it, because so much was left out of the theatrical version of the film

If you read the book Philosophy of Time Travel....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philosophy_of_Time_Travel

you'll get more idea about the film.

In a nutshell, the majority of the film takes place in an alternate universe, which was created by the jet engine falling off the plane. Unless Donnie makes everything right, guided by the giant rabbit, then the alternate universe and our universe will be destroyed. He makes it all right at the end, the alternate universe disappears and our universe continues, but he dies to do it.

Read into that what you want!!!

Answer 4

I thought it was an amazing film with multiple levels of plot complexity. The basic plot is that Donnie is a teen struggling with depression and when he begins taking meds he gains a "power" and a desire to understand time travel. He causes trouble by doing what a fellow time traveler tells him to do. In the end he decides to go back in time and undo all that he did in order to save the girl he loves. Most people get caught up in the details and the "dream" sequences with frank. I really enjoy the dark humor and the overall movie. The smurf discussion is my favorite part.

Answer 5

You're right, amazing describes it very well. The film is left to your own interpretation. We all know the Frank the bunny saved his life by getting him out of his house the night of the catastrophe. So he obeys Frank and in turn shakes up the community and benefits himself. By telling that lady to shove the "life-line" exercise up her @ss, he gets new stuff. By flooding the school, he meets his girlfriend. By burning the televangelist's house, he exposes him as a perv and he gets locked up. I think that after real Frank hits his girl he feels confused and that he has no one anymore so he kills Frank, uses the portal that appears that Frank told him about &he'd researched, travels back in time and sacrifices himself in the catastrophe to keep things "normal" and keep the community "happy". I could be wrong though.

Answer 6

Donnie Darko is a diffrent kind of movie, that takes a diffrent approach to explain "Destiny". It makes a cross between time travel and religious beliefs without ultimately letting the viewer know that its doing it. To start off you have Frank, that does an allusion to Alice in Wonderland´s white rabbit. His intervention saves Donnie's life, but ultimately dooms him to suffering by guaranteeing the events of the following 28 days. Shortly after, Donnie`s real drama begins after the igniting comment grandma death makes to Donnie: "every living thing dies alone" This brings a lot of reflection on Donnie, and is to my opinion, what fuels him to step away from his regular life. Gretchen introduces the element of love to Donnie`s life. I think this is all done to demonstrate the balance that always exists in life, or that in any case, fate would try to push on you. After the preliminary events, the movie pushes its tone to something more serious as Divine Destiny is called on scene. Frank being the personification of destiny's call, brings Donnie to reap the wicked. In a way, it seems as though Frank`s voice tries to maintain the duality of a human conscience fighting with itself to create justice in a world wrought with inequities. In other words, Donnie tries to bring justice to a world God has forsaken. Although he further mentions Him, through his actions he demonstrates his true doubt that God exists, and therefore takes things into his own hands. As the movie progresses however Donnie begins to understand the possibility of time-travel, specifically as a product of the existence of God. His theory is further proved at the ending, when he is brought back to the beginning. This is when Donnie confirms his belief, and understands that God in fact does exist, and that no creature ever dies alone. Donnie laughs at the end, upon realizing all this and knowing as well that death alone is nothing to be feared. He spares his family from pain, suffering and death by sacrificing himself. At the same time he annuls the love story that would have unfolded with Gretchen, but saves her life in doing so. His laughter jests at the irony behind destiny, and the smile of satisfaction arrests his decision to make the sacrifice and be the unsung hero.

Answer 7

its all about time travel, where theres a rip in the fabric of time (the jet engine that falls from apparently no where), because of this rip the end of the world will happen if the universe is not restored.....

its a great film. theres so much to explain i could'nt possibly type it all but the above is essentially the first bit of a long list of explanations.

Answer 8

It is all a matter of perception really. Either you believe that Donnie time travelled and then sacrificed himself or he was having precognition or he was just a schizophenic delusional madman.

I tend to go with the time travel theory. It helps a lot if you watch the uncut version on DVD because there are quite a few clues.

But overall, I just like the demented rabbit/alter-ego.

Answer 9

Watched it, absolutely loved it but then it got to the end and i was soooo confused! Found a couple of sites that might help clear it up a bit for anyone else who was confused by it! if you haven't seen it yet tho don't read them cos it will spoil the film!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Darko

http://www.stainlesssteelrat.net/ddfaq.htm

Answer 10

Sometime in the 80's a plane actually lost an engine and they found the engine before the plane lost it just like in the movie. The movie isn't supposed to be an actual recount of that time, but explores the possibility of time travel and black holes to explain something like that happening.

Answer 11

The way I understood it was it was perhaps saying that all that crap that happened to him after the house got hit didn't actually happen, perhaps he had a premonition or something. I was baffled.
It was well acted but a bit too deep for me and I was creeped out by that bunny (but when Jena Malone got hit by the car it was totally fake, you could see it was a dummy).

*EDIT*
Just read a few other posts and I finally get it, thanks 'never_myndd'. You finally made it make sense.