I've heard it called one of the greatest movies ever made, and I've heard
people say that they hate it. That's not exactly a new concept for cinema -
movies having a distinctly split fan-base, having audiences either love or
hate it, but Donnie Darko, the "masterpiece" by Richard Kelly, and the movie
to really spring-board Drew Barrymore as a producer, is very
different to most of them.
What makes it different, is that there are just so many damn ways you can
interpret the movie. And you can think about it for hours on end, and still
not feel like you've got it soused. I'll leave my overall opinion for the
conclusion.
I'm not going to go into what the movie is about, since I'm writing this
article to discuss your interpretations of the movie.
So anyway before anything, let's clear up some of the popular questions, and
don't forget, all of this is purely my own person interpretation:
WHERE DID THE JET ENGINE COME FROM?
Well, as we see at the end, Donnie's mom and the "Sparkle Motion" dance
troupe were on a plane "The Red Eye" back home, when they are caught in some
serious turbulence as the sky is opening up, and the world ending.
My interpretation, is that a jerk that the plane experienced in the air was
able to generate enough speed for the vessel to transcend time. Clearly not
the speed of light, that the professor said the phenomenon required, but
then he could certainly be wrong, and we never do find out what the book
said was needed.
So as I was saying, my impression, is that the plane was given the necessary
speed by a sudden onset of turbulence, and at the precise moment, one of the
'worm holes in the fabric of time' that they discussed earlier in the movie,
opened up, in front of the engine. The engine fell into that worm hole, and
travelled back in time, back to the 2nd of October, crashing into Donnie's
bedroom.
WHO IS FRANK, AND HOW DOES HE KNOW THE FUTURE?
Frank is just a regular kid (the one in Independence Day actually
hehe) wearing a bunny suit on Halloween. We see this twice: when he runs
over Gretchen, and when we see the montage of all the characters, and he
sits by the bed with a couple of sketches and the bunny-mask at his
bed-side.
Frank doesn't know the future.
It's all within Donnie. He has a six sense, he knows the future, but like
they discussed, for someone to know all the future, then it would create a
paradox which would cause time itself to collapse, as you'd be able to make
a choice, effectively changing a future that was pre-destined.
Therefore, Donnie sees his visions in a really confusing way: He has all the
images already in his head, but he just can't see them all. Or at least in
the way that they happen; he only sees glimpses here and there.
Frank is therefore the manifestation of his psychic ability. Simply, instead
of him seeing the future, he has an imaginary bunny telling it to him.
Why does it manifest itself in the form of Frank the man in a bunny rabbit
suit then?
Well, again, my interpretation is that throughout his life, the absolute
pinnacle of Donnie's emotional state is when his girl-friend Gretchen dies.
He generally could give a shit about anything in life, he gets suspended and
beaten, none of which taking any effect on him, the only time we truly see
him care about anything, is when Gretchen is run-over.
And who does he see at that very moment? Frank. This burns an image into his
memory, and it's therefore very understandable if his visions were going to
take on a persona, it would be Frank.
SO WHAT HAPPENS AT THE END?
Well, Donnie makes a choice. He sees the world ending, and he decides that
he's going to sacrifice himself. Let himself die, for Gretchen, the girl he
loves.
He tells Dr. Thurston that he has the power to time-travel.
And at the end of the movie, at that moment when he looks at Gretchen's dead
body and smiles, he makes the choice to use it. He travels back in time to
the 2nd of October, the day that the jet engine crashed into his bedroom,
and instead of meeting Frank in the street, he stays in his bed, falls
asleep, happily knowing that he's going to die, and that because of it,
things will be different, Gretchen won't die, Jim Cunningham's house won't
get burnt down and a load of other pain that he inflicted on people, won't
ever happen.
WHY IS THE WORLD GOING TO END ANYWAY?
Well, as is discussed, if you stray from the path intended, fucking up your
future, then the tangent world will collapse. Thus, when Donnie woke up and
met Frank on the first night, he cheated death, and therefore set in motion
the end of the world in just over 28 days.
Therefore, by going back in time, Donnie returns the natural order of
things, by doing what he was supposed to and letting himself die. Therefore
stopping the world from collapsing.
THINGS LEFT UN-ANSWERED
-
Who is the tubby Asian girl, and why does she have a book that says "Donnie
Darko" on it?
-
What's the importance of Drew Barrymore's character?
-
What's her connection with Donnie?
DONNIE - THE SUPERHERO
At a number of points during the movie, Donnie is shown to have great
strength, and powers of manipulation over some of the basic elements - fire
and water.
Early in the movie, Gretchen even asks him "Donnie Darko, what kind of name
is that anyway? Sounds like a superhero or something." Donnie replies "What
makes you think I'm not?".
His name even contains the common superhero alliteration, such as Peter
Parker and Bruce Banner.
Later on, we find that Donnie is able to burn down a child-pornographer's
house and flood the school.
We're given a subtle indication that he has power over the elements also,
when he walks down the street, just before finding Patrick Swayze's wallet,
there are two sprinklers shooting water all over the place. As he enters the
frame and bends over to pick up the wallet, the sprinklers immediately stop.
As he gets up and leaves the area, they turn back on again.
IS IT A 'MASTER-PIECE' OR IS IT GROSSLY OVER-RATED?
Well that's the question.
What movies would I refer to as 'master-pieces'? Well, I'd without
hesitation, call Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Magnolia,
Memento, The Usual Suspects, The Matrix and American
Beauty 'master-pieces'. You could argue that I'm wrong, sure, but in my
opinion, these movies move you for their entire durations, end phenomenally,
make you think, and are just, at their core, awesome movies.
Donnie Darko, suffers from what I like to call the
"Unbreakable-syndrome".
The movie runs for roughly an hour and forty minutes. Of it's duration, I
constantly found myself bored, the only reason that I continued to watch,
being that I knew it's reputation, and knew that I was in for a good movie.
The sheer fact that it had a great ending didn't redeem and make accountance
for the fact that a lot of the movie was really, really unwatchable.
If I'd have flicked on to this on TV, having never heard of it before, with
the exception of like two or three scenes, I would have instantly switched
over to something else. Even the sound-track was shit, absolute shit, which
brings me on to the next point.
The song "Mad World" by Gary Jules was phenomenal. I always rave about how
PT Anderson used Aimee Mann's "Save Me" at the end of Magnolia. But
I've got to say, that's nothing compared to the effect Mad World has at the
end of Donnie Darko. I downloaded it after seeing it, and it still
has an effect on my when I listen to it now.
So what do we have? We have a really sub-par movie, with a poor soundtrack
for about an hour and a half, and then Gretchen gets run over, and we get
fifteen minutes of brilliance, coupled with an outstanding song.
I guess that's the question you have to answer yourself then, can an
outstanding ending, make up for a weak movie? So much that it can turn the
whole movie into a master-piece?
My answer is no. And while, after I finished watching it I thought I'd just
seen something out of this world, the more I think about it, I realise that
I was fooled by an ending that was so good that it actually made me think
I'd seen something excellent.
CONCLUSION
Twelve Monkeys. That is a movie that shows you how to do time travel
in a movie. If you really understand the paradox in that movie, and the
circular logic of time, then you'll see that what happens in Donnie Darko
is in fact impossible anyway.
I'd love to say that Donnie Darko is one of my favourite movies, but
it really isn't. I don't rate it all in fact, I'd recommend it to someone to
watch, but definitely don't think it's a great movie.
So what do you think? Drop me an email, sign the guestbook or leave a
message on the tag board or something.
Drew Barrymore, I think you got lucky on this one.
