Movie Analysis

Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko is quite different than typical time travel movies. Complete with telekinesis, tangent universes, and giant talking rabbits, Donnie Darko makes for an interesting two hours. With a budget of merely $4,500,000, this movie was made in only 28 days (Wikipedia), the same amount of time that the movie spans, Donnie Darko not only won the 2001 award for "Best Screenplay" along with numerous other awards, but also has earned a place in the hearts of many as a classic science fiction movie.

The moment the jet engine falls into the bedroom of Donnie Darko, a Tangent Universe is created that is highly unstable. Donnie is saved by Frank, a large bunny-rabbit who is thought to be a result of the medicine Donnie is taking, who coaxes him from his room just minutes before the engine falls. Frank constantly visits Donnie dropping hints about what is happening in his life. He asks Donnie if he believes in time travel, and the next day Donnie is given the book "The Philosophy of Time Travel" written by his neighbor Roberta Sparrow. This book explains all of the visions Donnie has been experiencing, and he knows, and claims to his psychiatrist, that it "can't be a coincidence."

Upon reading the book, Donnie begins to make sense of what he is a part of. He learns of Tangent Universes and that a Tangent Universe (The universe since the engine) will collapse upon itself unless the Living Receiver (Donnie) is able to send the artifact (the engine) back through the wormhole to the time when the Tangent Universe came into existence. Twenty-eight days is how long Donnie has to come to terms with the fact that he must die in order to save the universe. Many different people, the Manipulated Dead and the Manipulated Living, create by a chain of coincidences in Donnie's life to ensure that his fate is inescapable (Kois).

The actual travel through time comes into play in this movie at the very end once Donnie has come to terms with the fact that he is the one who must sacrifice himself to save the rest of the world. He is able to accept this fact upon witnessing his girlfriend Gretchen get run over by a car, driven by a boy named Frank who is wearing a rabbit suit for Halloween. After witnessing her die, Donnie kills Frank by shooting him in the eye. Both witnessing Gretchen die and killing Frank helped Donnie to overcome his fear of dying alone because he realizes that his death would not be meaningless because these two people would be able to live. Donnie, as the Living Receiver, uses powers of telekinesis to send the jet engine from a plane into a wormhole that will send it back to when the Tangent Universe began.

Donnie's death has become meaningful in his own eyes because he knows that by dying he is making the world better for so many other people. Seeing the girl he loved die was the final straw that helped him to find meaning in death because Donnie and Gretchen would never have met if he died in the first place. But because he was able to live out the 28 days and see what would become of her if he did not die, he sacrificed himself so that she could live.

The idea of one minor change as a result of time travel affecting existence completely is the main theme of this movie, and being able to find the good in his own death and accept the burden is just one of the many aspects of Donnie that makes his quirky character so lovable.