Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko sleepwalks. On the night of October 2nd, 1988, he is led by Frank, a six-foot-tall rabbit, onto a golf course, where he is told the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. While this is going on, a jet-engine crashes into Donnie's room, a disaster that would have killed him had he still been in bed. He continues to see Frank, who claims to be from the future, and guides him into flooding his school, which allows him to strike up a conversation with Gretchen Ross, a girl in his class, who becomes his girlfriend as a result of their meeting. Frank then leads Donnie to burn down the house of Jim Cunningham, a local motivational speaker, who apparently has a child-pornography dungeon hidden in his house. Ms. Farmer, Donnie's gym teacher and the school dance team coach is also one of Cunningham's biggest supporters, and as the team is supposed to perform on Star Search, she asks Donnie's mother to chaperone the team, of which her daughter is a member, to California for the performance so she can help the defense campaign.

Upon being questioned about time travel by Frank, Donnie asks his science teacher, Dr. Monnitoff, about the subject. Dr. Monnitoff, in turn, offers Donnie a book, "The Philosophy of Time Travel", by a former teacher and now 101-year old recluse, Roberta Sparrow, who Donnie knows better as Grandma Death. The book describes a lot of what Donnie is experiencing perfectly, including visions of liquid "spears" coming out of people's chests, showing where they are going in the near future.

Donnie writes a letter to Grandma Death, and on the night before the world supposedly ends, there is a party at Donnie's house for both Hallowe'en, and for Donnie's sister who got accepted to Harvard. Donnie's father is unusually absent (on a business trip), and his mother and sister are gone to California for the Star Search show. During the party, Donnie becomes aware that his time is almost up, and takes Gretchen and two of his friends to Grandma Death's house in search of some sort of guidance. Upon arriving and entering through an open cellar door, they are accosted by two tougher guys from their school, armed with big knives. Gretchen has the wind knocked out of her and is left in the middle of the road, while one of the armed kids pins Donnie down, knife to his throat. A car comes zooming into view and it narrowly avoids hitting Grandma Death who is now standing in the middle of the road, Donnie's letter in hand. The car swerves to avoid the older lady and runs Gretchen down, breaking her neck and killing her instantly. The two thugs flee, and the car door opens to reveal Frank, mask off, incredulous. This is Frank's past self. Donnie shoots him in his right eye, imploding it and killing him, sending the passenger of the car off to tell his parents that "everything is gonna be okay".

Morning begins to break, and Donnie takes Gretchen's body in the family car up to Carpathian Ridge, where a time portal opens up in the sky. The plane bringing Donnie's mother and sister home heads straight into the storm the portal causes, and a jet engine is ripped from it. Donnie sends the jet engine into the portal, back through time to October 2nd. When the engine returns through time, Donnie is in bed, laughing, and he is crushed by the engine. In the 28 days Frank outlined, Donnie Darko was in an alternate dimension, called a Tangent Universe. In that time, Donnie was allowed to live, but the whole world was threatened by the time portal that appeared as a result. Donnie kills his "past self" to reverse the events that took place in the Tangent Universe: to save the lives of everyone living in his world, including his mother and sister, Gretchen, and the past Frank. In the process, the "Manipulated Living" as they are called, the people who Donnie saved, feel the consequences of these actions as well as their own actions in the Tangent Universe, but cannot remember them, only recalling them in dreams.




This all sounds rather convoluted, I'm sure, and I'm telling you, it's a lot better on film than it is in textual form. That being said, there are far too many characters in the film that affect Donnie's world, but in the Characters section, I've outlined a little bit about each one, to expand on what I've written here. The actual religious analysis will be brought to the surface in the pages to follow.