Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko movie: summary, analysis and meaning

Donnie darko is a science fiction film written and directed by Richard Kelly. In 2001, the year of its premiere, the film did not attract much attention from distributors and the public. However, due to its theme related to quantum physics and time travel, it gradually awakened the curiosity and interest of viewers and moviegoers.

In 2002, when it was released on DVD, the sales success was surprising; exceeded ten million dollars. Considered a complex and absurd film, it has generated various theories and discussions, reaching the status of a cult film.

Synopsis

Donnie Darko is a lonely teenager who suffers from sleepwalking and roams the city while he sleeps. One night, he hears a voice that draws him into the garden, where he sees someone in a rabbit costume. The mysterious figure, named Frank, starts a countdown that heralds the end of the world.

Meanwhile, an airplane turbine falls on his house destroying his room. From that moment on, the teenager begins to see Frank frequently. The protagonist, who complies with the rabbit's orders, begins to commit seemingly random acts of vandalism.

His actions trigger consequences: because of the flood he meets Gretchen, his girlfriend, and thanks to the fire the police discover that Jim, a phony speaker, was involved in a network of pedophilia. When he reads the book by Roberta Sparrow, a former nun and science teacher, he realizes that it is about phenomena related to time travel and that they can interfere with reality.

Characters and cast

Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal)

The protagonist is a lonely and troubled teenager who suffers from sleepwalking. Amazed by the strange rabbit, in love with Gretchen, and obsessed with Roberta Sparrow's book, Donnie has to travel through time to save humanity.

Frank (James Duval)

Frank is the figure that appears dressed as a rabbit and that only Donnie can see. When he removes his mask, he shows his face with a bullet in his right eye. Guide Donnie through a countdown to the end of the world. Therefore, his appearance seems to be related to the possibility of time travel.

Darko's family (Holmes Osborne, Mary McDonel, Maggie Gyllenhaal)

The Darko family is a typical American family whose life is shaken when a turbine falls in Donnie's room. From that moment on, the Darko are affected by the adolescent's erratic behavior.

Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone)

Gretchen is the new student who comes to town to flee from her violent stepfather, who tried to kill her mother. She meets Donnie, they fall in love and start dating, but the relationship comes to an abrupt end.

Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore)

Karen is the literature teacher, accused of being a bad influence on her students. She is a defender of common sense and dialogue, she ends up being fired from her.

Keneth Monitoff (Noah Wyle)

It is with Keneth, a science teacher, that Donnie first talks about quantum physics and time travel. When what the young man describes exceeds his knowledge, the professor hands him a book written long ago by Roberta Sparrow.

Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze)

Jim Cunningham is an author and motivational preacher who will be lecturing at Donnie's school. In his videos, as well as in his talks, he seems to try to guide fans with useless advice. Donnie, critical of Jim's hypocrisy, ends up revealing his biggest secret.

Kittty Farmer (Beth Grant)

Kitty is a gym teacher and head of the children's dance group to which Samantha, Donnie's younger sister, belongs. Conservative and Jim's follower, she demands Karen's resignation and has Donnie's parents called to the school after arguing with him during a class.

Roberta Sparrow (Patience Cleveland)

Roberta Sparrow was a nun, until an enlightenment led her to leave the convent and write a book on time travel. A former science teacher, the old woman lives alone and checks her mail every day, waiting for correspondence. In Roberta's book, Donnie finds an explanation for all the phenomena that have happened to him.

Resume

Approach

The film begins when Donnie Darko, a teenager who suffers from sleepwalking, wakes up in the middle of a road. Barefoot and in pajamas, he rides his bike and drives home. The young man alters the atmosphere of family harmony by arguing with his parents, who are worried about his disappearance and want to force him to take his psychiatric medications.

That same night, Donnie hears a voice while he is asleep and is directed to the garden, where he finds someone dressed in a terrifying rabbit costume. The mysterious creature, named Frank, tells him that the world will end and then he determines the exact moment with a countdown: 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds.

Meanwhile, an airplane turbine falls on the roof and wakes up the whole family. Donnie wakes up on a golf course and goes home. He discovers that the turbine has fallen on top of her room and that she would have died if she weren't sleepwalking. Her father says the authorities don't know where the plane crashed. During the conversation in the car, Roberta Sparrow, a lonely old woman who spends the day staring at the mailbox, is nearly run over. Donnie gets out of the car to check that he's okay and she whispers something in his ear.

Developing

At the therapy consultation, Donnie confesses that he has a new imaginary friend who will guide him to the end of the world. At school, he studies a play in which the protagonists destroy a house. That same night, he dreams that the hallways of the school are flooded as he hears Frank's voice and leaves his house with an ax in hand.

The next morning, the students discover that the school has been flooded and the statue of his mascot has been vandalized. They are sent back home and on the way Donnie meets Gretchen and offers to accompany her. The young woman says that she moved to the city with her mother to flee from her violent stepfather. He confesses that he has social problems and that he was expelled from school for setting fire to an abandoned house.

The school tries to discover the person responsible for the painting and they force all the students to write the sentence under the statue. A partner of Donnie threatens him with a knife in the bathroom, accusing him of being the perpetrator of the crime. At the parents' meeting, the English teacher is accused of being a bad influence, due to the book she was reading in class.

Meanwhile, Donne sees Frank in the bathroom mirror and asks if he's heard of time travel. He talks about it with the science teacher and he gives him a copy of Roberta Sparrow's book. She begins to see the phenomena described in the book, as a furrow of energy that comes out of the chest of each person and guides her to her destiny, writing her future. He heads towards a closet, where he finds a gun.

At school, he is forced to attend a lecture by motivator Jim Cunningham. Finally Donnie argues with him and calls him a hypocrite and manipulative. The protagonist tells Gretchen that he is seeing things that Roberta discovers and decides to go visit her but she does not open the door. Frank has Donnie send a letter to Roberta.

The protathonist finds a wallet on the street and discovers that it belongs to Jim. She hears Frank's voice saying: "now you know where he lives", Gretchen is bullied in class by her stepfather and runs out of school. Donnie goes after her and they kiss her. At night, they go to the movies and while Gretchen sleeps, Donnie sees Frank. The mysterious figure removes his mask and shows a young face, with the eye wounded by a bullet. Donnie sneaks out of the theater and sets fire to the speaker's house. Firefighters find pedophile images on her desk.

A follower of Jim, the gym teacher cannot accompany Donnie's sister's dance group to Los Angeles and asks Mrs. Darko to take them. In therapy, Donnie is hypnotized and confesses to the crimes of vandalism from him, also declaring that Frank is going to kill soon.

Outcome

Donnie and his older sister decide to have a birthday party. Halloween. Dressed as a skeleton, Donnie realizes that they have to go to Roberta's house to talk about Frank. Gretchen and her friends go too. They enter the garage of the house and discover the thieves. One of them grabs Donnie and the other pushes Gretchen to the middle of the road. Roberta is next to the mailbox.

A car appears and, moving away from Roberta, runs over Gretchen, who dies in the hour. The driver is Frank, disguised as a rabbit, who gets out of the car to see what has happened. Donnie shoots him.

The protagonist takes Gretchen's body to his house, placing it in the car, fleeing down the street while the police search for him. He sees his mother's plane crash in the distance and waits with the body of his lover. A portal opens and Donnie goes back in time. He is back, in bed, he smiles and the turbine falls into the room, killing the protagonist.

Analysis of the film Donnie Darko

Donnie: Troubled Teen

From the beginning of the film, it is clear that the protagonist is a peculiar young man. When suffering from sleepwalking, it is common for him to disappear at night and wake up lost and confused in the strangest places.

Her family seems concerned about her behavior and encourages her to attend therapy sessions and take appropriate psychiatric medication. On the refrigerator door there is a white board where you can read:

Where's Donnie?

At school, Donnie does not seem to adapt well either, involved in conflicts with teachers and students. Although he is extremely intelligent and a good student, his presence seems to disrupt the school environment, to the point of even causing the school to be provisionally closed.

Speaking with Gretchen, he confesses that he had already been expelled from school earlier by a fire in an abandoned house. When his parents are summoned for a meeting with the therapist, she says that his aggressiveness and inability to deal with outside threats may be indications of paranoid schizophrenia.

One of the most interesting elements of the film is the way the viewer questions the protagonist's health, divided between the chances that Frank is real or just a hallucination.

Countdown to the end of the world

On the night of October 2, Donnie is sleeping in his bed and he hears a voice ordering him to wake up. He gets up and walks to the door, passing the father on the couch. In the garden, he sees a strange figure that tells him:

28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds... It will be then when the world ends.

While the rest of the family sleeps, the older sister is trying to get into the house without waking anyone, when she hears a deafening noise and sees the lamp shake. That morning, Donnie wakes up on a golf course. On his arm are written the numbers that Frank dictated.

When he returns home, there is a crowd at his door. Donnie discovers that during the night, the turbine of an unidentified plane has fallen on top of his room.

From that moment on, his behavior becomes increasingly erratic, coming to confess to the therapist the existence of a new imaginary friend whom he has to follow to the end.

Flood at school

During literature hour, Donnie's class studies The destroyers, a Graham Greene classic that describes the adventure of a group of children smashing and destroying a house. Professor Karen stresses that their interests were not financial, as they found a lot of money and burned it.

Thus, he asks the students what intention would be behind that act. Donnie gives the interpretation of him, claiming that they were trying to destroy the world to change things. The identification of the protagonist with the children of the book becomes more evident that same night.

Donnie dreams of flooded school hallways. He gets up, grabs an ax, and leaves the house to destroy the school's water pipe. The next morning, the building is closed because of the flood. The ax is on the head of the statue in the courtyard, with the phrase "They made me do it."

Fire at Jim's house

When Kitty, the gym teacher, forces the class to watch Jim Cunningham motivational guide videos, Donnie hears Frank's voice: "Pay attention." The young man argues with the teacher about Jim's approach, which summarizes human actions in fear and love, limiting the capacity of our emotions and motivations.

Later in the lecture, the guide gives an example with the name of Frank, which is about a boy who finds a wallet on the street. The mysterious figure confirms that it is not a coincidence: "We move in time."

Donnie confronts Jim about the hypocrisy and ineffectiveness of his advice and suggests that Jim enriches himself at the expense of the despair of others. Some people clap and he is kicked out of the room.

Soon after, while he is walking down the street, he finds a wallet. Inside him, he discovers Jim's documents and hears Frank's voice again:

Now you know where he lives.

Donnie invites his girlfriend to the movies and while she sleeps, he goes out hiding and goes to Jim's house, setting the place on fire. Meanwhile, Jim is at the school talent show, close to the children, including Darko's little sister, who is part of the dance team.

When the police investigate the fire, she discovers that Jim collects pedophile images and arrests him. Kitty, her passionate follower, decides not to accompany the dance team on the trip to Los Angeles and asks Donnie's mother to replace her. In this way, because of the fire, Donnie discovers the pedophile and puts his mother on that plane.

Roberta Sparrow book

The morning after the turbine crashed, Donnie's father almost ran over an old woman in the street, as she was going to check the mailbox. The young man gets out of the car to see if the woman is okay and she whispers an enigmatic phrase in her ear:

All creatures on earth die alone

After flooding the school, during the parents' meeting, Donnie sees Frank's reflection in the mirror when he goes to take his medicine. The mirror appears liquid, made of a malleable material. When he asks his friend how he can do it, he replies: "I can do whatever you want and so can you."

Thus, it is confirmed that the two appear to have supernatural powers. Donnie questions the reasons for the school's flooding and Frank only tells him that they are "in danger." As if he continues his explanation, he asks:

Do you believe in time travel?

The protagonist looks for his science teacher to talk about the subject. Keneth recommends the book Brief history of time by Stephen Hawking. In short, she explains that to travel you need to find a wormhole (wormhole), a shortcut in space-time that allows us to jump between two temporary places. In addition to the portal, it is also essential to have a vehicle that travels at the speed of light.

Keneth also hands him a book written by Roberta Sparrow, a former school teacher. Roberta, who was previously a nun, left the convent to dedicate herself to science and later wrote the work The philosophy of time travel. Donnie discovers that the woman is 101 years old and she never leaves the house because she lives waiting for a letter.

As Donnie reads the book, he begins to see the phenomena being described. When he is sitting in the living room watching television with his father and his friends, he begins to see something coming out of his his chest, like a trace of energy that signals his next action, that determines the movements of his future righ now. He follows his trail to the closet, where he finds a gun that he keeps in his pocket, thinking it is part of Frank's orders.

According to the book, the world is about to end and someone needs to go back in time to save it. Donnie visits Roberta to ask for help but she does not open the door and the young man decides to send her a letter.

He talks to the science teacher again to find an explanation for what is happening. They discuss the concepts of destiny and free will. Keith argues that if someone could know his way, his future, he would have the possibility to change it at any moment. Darko explains that if the subject travels in the "way of God" he has no possible choice because he sees his destiny and cannot change it.

Frank reveal

It is at the movies, while Gretchen sleeps, Donnie sees Frank's face for the first time. He removes his rabbit mask and reveals a young face about Darko's age, with a bullet embedded in the right eye and spilling blood. Frank's suffering seems to reflect Donnie's tragic fate. They speak:

-When is he going to finish this?

-You should know.

From his first appearance, Frank repeats the same countdown and directs Donnie to a specific moment for which he is destined. A hole appears to be opening in the movie screen, accompanied by religious images and sounds. Frank asks, "Have you seen the portal yet?"

Later, in therapy, the young man confesses his crimes and is remorseful. She explains that he has to follow Frank's orders in order to understand what's going on. Finally, he says that he has the power to build a time machine and announces two prophecies: "Frank is going to kill" and "the sky will open".

Gretchen: passion and death

Gretchen's fate seems to intersect with Donnie's from the start. When he comes to class for the first time, the teacher tells him that he sits next to the protagonist. They speak for the first time after the school flood, when Donnie defends her from a classmate.

Then they exchange stories about their respective pasts and express their desire to be able to go back in time, erase bad memories and replace them with better experiences. Before they start dating, Gretchen says that Donnie Darko is the name of a superhero and the protagonist replies that maybe he is. Throughout the film, he tries to protect his girlfriend from him at all costs and ends up sacrificing his own life.

During the night of HalloweenWhile his mother and his little sister are away, Donnie and his older sister decide to have a party, in which Gretchen appears. Desperate for the disappearance of her mother, the young woman unburdens herself about the future of her family:

I guess some people are born with tragedy in their blood.

Soon after, Donnie sees the energy trail coming from his chest again and directs it to the refrigerator. On the door, there is a message from Frank saying that he has gone out to buy beer. He decides to find Roberta Sparrow to talk about what's going on. He rides his bike to his house accompanied by Gretchen and his two friends.

The group discovers that the garage door is open and decides to go inside to see the place. Inside, there are two assailants with knives and they attack the couple. During the fight, they go towards the road and Gretchen, injured, falls to the ground. In the dark, a car appears that dodges Roberta and ends up running over Gretchen, who dies on the spot.

Who drives is Frank, disguised as a rabbit. Nervous, the young man gets out of the car to see the condition of the girl. When he removes her mask, Donnie shoots her in the face with the gun that he had found in the closet a few days earlier. Trying to calm the passenger, the protagonist orders him to go home, assuring that "everything will be fine."

Roberta tells Donnie that she must hurry because the storm is coming. He visualizes seemingly disjointed images: portals, rabbits, car racing games. The protagonist, holding Gretchen's body, realizes that it is time to fulfill her destiny: she had to die for Donnie to go back in time and save humanity and the woman who loves.

Movie's ending

TRAVELLING THROUGH TIME

As a storm begins to form in the sky, Donnie gets into the car with Gretchen's body and drives down the highway, trying to escape the police sirens. When he stops, he sits on top of the car and watches a plane take off. At the same time, we see that Darko's mother and little sister are on that plane. The protagonist sees codes, equations and hears a countdown, like a rocket launch. Donnie laughs and says, "I'm going home."

While we watch fireworks and images of the protagonist's life, like a movie backwards, we listen to the letter that the young man wrote to Roberta. Suddenly Donnie is back in his bed. He laughs, realizing that he has managed to go back in time. Again, we see the father sleeping on the sofa and the older sister entering the house without making noise; Donnie waits smiling. The turbine falls back into his room and, this time, kills the protagonist.

FINAL SCENE

Some of the most prominent scenes are at the end of the film and are accompanied by the song Man world, played by Gary Jules. When the protagonist dies, we can observe that several characters wake up startled or that they were already awake: the therapist, the teachers and the friends. Frank is especially upset. Surrounded by rabbit drawings, with his gaze fixed on the horizon, he touches his right eye as if he remembered what had happened.

In the morning, Donnie's corpse is lifted and his family cries, as they remove the jet engine from the room. Gretchen passes by riding a bicycle and asks about what happened but she does not remember the protagonist since, in that version of time, they never met. The young woman and Donnie's mother greet each other.

Explanation of the movie

Though understand Donnie darko It is not an easy task, the key to solving the mystery seems to be found in Roberta Sparrow's book. If we pay attention to the fragments that appear in the film, everything seems much clearer.

The work is presented as a guide that Roberta wrote at a time of great danger. She cautions readers that if they recognize the events she describes in the book, they should send her a letter. Hence her obsession with checking the mail on a daily basis.

As the author has explained, the fourth dimension may be damaged, which results in a tangent universe, an alternate and unstable reality that lasts only a few weeks, to later transform into a black hole capable of destroying humanity.

The most obvious sign about the creation of this tangent universe It is the appearance of an artifact, a strange metal object that appears without any logic and arouses everyone's interest. In this case, the artifact is the turbine.

During the tangent universe, those closest to the vortex will be the most affected by its effects, which explains Donnie's erratic behavior.

The protagonist is the live receiver, someone haunted by hallucinations and nightmares, chosen to bring the artifact back to the primary universe. His task is to "guarantee the destiny of all humanity" and that of the people around him, manipulated alive, which should help you meet it. His violent acts serve to guide Donnie toward his goal.

Frank and Gretchen play the role of manipulated dead, by creating a trap that forces the live receiver to return the artifact to primary universe before the black hole collapses into itself. Guided through Frank's visions and pressured by Gretchen's death, Donnie has no choice.

Gathering the essential elements to travel through time (water as a portal and metal as a vehicle for transporting the artifact) with the plane crash, Donnie can go back in time and set the order of the things in the primary universe. Therefore, he sacrifices his life to save all of humanity.

According to the book, when manipulated They wake up from the experience, they can totally forget what happened and be surprised in their dreams. Frank obsessively draws the rabbit costume and touches the eye that he had injured, in this way he seems to remember it. Gretchen doesn't seem to have any memories of Donnie.

Signs of tragedy

When we visualize the film, we can perceive that from the beginning there are hidden signs that predict the tragic end of Donnie. The first morning, when he returns home on his bicycle, he comes across an advertisement for a party of Halloween, night in which everything happens.

Also in this scene, the song that plays is Never Tear Us Apart do of the INXS group. The lyrics talk about "two worlds in collision", it refers to the Tangent Universe that was being formed.

Later, on Poetry Day, Donnie reads the poem he wrote for Gretchen, where he cautions:

The tempest is coming, princess.

Another sign is the racing game that Gretchen and Donnie play, where we see a couple in a car. The image is repeated near the end of the film, when the protagonist drives a car with the body of his girlfriend next to him.

Professor Karen and the books studied in class also seem to be directly related to the fate of the protagonist. The destroyers (1968) by Graham Greene symbolize Donnie's revolt and the desire to destroy him as a way of transforming reality.

Watership Hill (1972) by Richard Adams is the story of a society of anthropomorphized rabbits that are forced to flee their home in order to survive. In the play, one of the protagonists is visited by the spiritual guide of the rabbits, El- Ahrairah, and leads his people to salvation. He ends up leaving the guide and leaves his body behind, that is, he dies to save the community from him, just like Donnie.

The reference becomes more explicit when Kearen, although unaware of Donnie's "hallucination," suggests, "Maybe you and Frank can read together." When she is fired, he writes "cellar door" on the board and says that this combination of words is the favorite of a famous linguist.

Another clue concerning the events of the night of Halloween is the conversation that Donnie has with his parents about Roberta, in which they say that she is a very rich woman who stopped leaving home because she had suffered many assault attempts.

When Donnie and his sister decide to have a birthday party Halloween, the pumpkin lantern, typical of the celebration, on the table is shaped like Frank's face. At the party, the protagonist is dressed as a skeleton, a sign of his imminent death. Donnie walks to death, is aware of his arrival.

Finally, when Donnie and Gretchen decide to leave the room and go downstairs, the one who will be their last moment alone, you can see that the shadows on the wall clock form a face sad.

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(Text translated and adapted by Marian ortiz).