Movie 2005.12.07 - Donnie Darko

I can only wonder why I haven't watched this film earlier. Donnie Darko has none of the embellishments of a big-budget film or big-shot stars, but this only serves to stress the powerful plot and make the audience concentrate more on the sequence of events. This cult movie is hard to understand, and even harder to explain. I hope you've already watched it before reading my analysis.

Donnie Darko is a troubled teenager living in Middlesex, Virginia. One fateful night (Oct. 2, 1988), a voice wakes him up and leads him to the golf course. A demonic human-sized bunny appears and tells him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. While Donnie is out of the house, a jet engine falls from the sky and crashes into his bedroom. Looks like a stroke of good luck, but in fact, Donnie's troubles have only begun. You see, Donnie is supposed to die that night. When the FAA investigates the incident, they can't trace where that engine came from because it came from the future. Hear me out before you smirk. Time travel, wormholes, parallel universes, ring a bell? Somehow, a plane from a (future) parallel (or tangent) universe crossed a wormhole and its engine is dislodged and is sucked into our universe (28 days before). The premise here is that the wormhole between our universe and the parallel universe is inherently unstable, thus it has to be closed off in 28 days, or else our world will end. And that heroic feat rests on Donnie as he cheated his destined fate.

We can't say for sure whether all this is happening for real, or maybe just a product of his schizophrenia medication and psychiatric sessions. Either way, Frank the demonic bunny comes to him regularly and tells Donnie what to do. Frank here acts like his tour guide from the future because everything that Donnie does brings him closer to sealing off the parallel universe. He floods the school and gets to meet his future girlfriend Gretchen on his way home. He burns down the house of Jim Cunningham, a self-help guru, and the responding firemen discovers a kiddie porn dungeon, and hauls the motivational speaker away. Kitty Hawk, the physical education teacher, is supposed to chaperone some girls to Ed McMahon's Star Search competition in LA, California, but she opted to stay behind and defend the "innocent" Jim Cunningham. She begs Donnie's mom to pitch in for her, so that's how Donnie's mother and younger sister ended up on that fateful plane whose engine got sucked into a wormhole and crashed into his bedroom 28 days earlier. Now you see....., but we're not yet done.

With their parents gone, Donnie and his sister throw a Halloween party. (Hmm, costumes, hmm.) Feeling that the end is nigh, he brings Gretchen to see 101-year old Grandma Death a.k.a. Roberta Sparrow, who was actually a teacher at Middlesex Ridge School and author of The Philosophy of Time Travel, where all these time travel concepts are explained. There they encounter a bunch of thugs looking for rumoured treasure in the cellar. They have a scuffle, and Gretchen was thrown onto the ground. Meanwhile, Frank was driving down the road. Yes, Frank who left the party to get more beer. Frank who sees Grandma Death standing in the middle of the road. Frank who swerves and runs over Gretchen instead. Frank who is dressed up as a bunny. Yes, Frank who is Donnie's spiritual guide from the future. (I just love this part. Very similar to the time that the main character in Fight Club discovers that he is Tyler Durden's alter ego.) Donnie finds Gretchen dead. He pulls out the gun that Frank (the dead bunny from the future) told him to steal from his parent's room and shoots Frank in the face.

Up in the sky, Donnie's Mom and younger sister are on Flight 2806 (28 days 6 hours, get it?) on their way back to Virginia. The plane wing explodes and the engine breaks away. It crashes into Donnie's bedroom, where he's on the bed patiently waiting for his time to come.

Now, time for some funny and/or interesting quotes:
Donnie: Will you go with me? Gretchen: Where are we going?
Kid on tape: I'M NOT SCARED ANYMORE!
Donnie: Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit? Frank: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?
Student1: What are feces? Student2: Baby mice. Student1: Awwww.
Grandma Death: Every living creature on earth dies alone.
Elizabeth: Well, that's not the way the world works. If you keep being too honest, the world will eventually find a way to destroy you.
Dr. Monnitoff: If we could see our destinies manifest themselves visually, then we would be given the choice to betray our chosen destinies. The very fact that this choice exists would mean that all pre-formed destiny would end.
Kitty Farmer: Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Ms. Pomeroy: A famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that "Cellar Door" is the most beautiful.