Alright, then explain the scene where everyone in town wakes up in the middle of the night, at the exact same moment, many clearly remembering the events of the movie? Remember, this happens after Donnie dies, and so can’t be part of his hallucination.
You’re assuming the jet engine really did fall on the house and kill him. If one can interpret the rest of the movie as primarily hallucinations and delusions, why not that part too?
Or Donnie could be both schizophrenic and in a time loop/alternate universe/whatever. Makes as much sense as anything else, especially since he was in therapy before Frank showed up and the science-fiction events of the movie began.
Again, the director has said that he did not intend for the audience to see Donnie as schizophrenic, but there is plenty of support and no contradiction in the movie itself for such an interpretation.
Or Donnie could be schizophrenic because he’s in a time loop/alternate universe/whatever.
I don’t give too much credit to the DVD commentary (particularly for the deleted scene commentary where the director said, “Jake did this entire scene without blinking” and then, as if on cue, Jake blinks). But I think the web site is a kind of supplement to the movie, and as such it comes together nicely.
The key is this: think of the scene where Donnie and Gretchen are delivering a presentation to their class about goggles that show a baby nice images in its developmental stages. Their idea was shot down by this question: “Don’t you think people need darkness in their lives?”
That’s what Donnie did. He disrupted the school, he humiliated the celebrity, he teased Cherita and embarrassed her by learning about her crush, etc. People got fired, arrested, and killed, but each was affected in some way by the experience. Then, Donnie removed himself entirely, collapsing the tangent universe and giving them a second chance. What did they keep from this experience, when all was set back the way it was? In the end, you could see, they all still had the darkness he brought.
I just remembered: around the third time I was watching the movie, I noticed something in the motivational video they show Donnie’s class.
The kid who wets his bed; the only minor in the video. At the end, Swayze’s character congratulates all the people in his video. As he hugs the boy, he reaches down and grabs the kid’s butt. This happens really fast, actually during a transition effect in the video, but I think I shouted in astonishment when I caught that.
I’ve only seen the movie once, but I got basically what Number Six got.
As to whether he’s schizophrenic, I believe he is schizophrenic in some sense. They speak of Donnie in therapy and he goes to shrink in the movie. However, that does not necessarily mean he is delusional. Perhaps what others see as schizophrenia is really the effects of being the chosen one.
Actually, I refuse to pin him down as either delusional or visionary, rather he is both at the same time (in my opinion). I think this is much more interesting.
As for the commentary, I listened to some of it but had to get to sleep so I only got some of what the director was saying. My feeling is that the director is just trying to interpret something he doesn’t really understand. Sure he’s responsible for the movie, and in the real world he is the one who knows what the movie ‘really’ is about, but in the world of the movie he about as clueless as anyone else.
I don’t understand the things that come out of the people’s chests. What’s the signifigance to those?
I just saw the movie, and my thoughts were along the lines of Number Six’s though not as well developed or articulated.
Is there any greater significance to the Cherita character other than to be teased and have a crush on Donnie? What was up with that interperative dance she did?
The things coming out of people’s chests were as far as I could tell a represenation of their future movement through space time. Having said that, why Donnie’s beckoned him is anybody’s guess.
The movie had a few too many holes/unanswered questions for it to be really, really good, but on the whole I liked it.
Donnie D is one of my favorites as well…
So you theorize that who were affected in the tangential reality experienced what happened as a dream in real life? Or that everyone actually remembers the tangent reality? Of course, that’s shot down because Gretchen doesn’t know who Donnie is after the tanget world collapses. The dream theory is rather interesting though, and amazingly one I hadn’t heard.
I agree with Number Six about Donnie as a Christ figure. I think the fact that the camera stalled on the shot of the theater sign as Donnie and Gretchen left the movie was telling. The marquee read “The Last Temptation of Christ”. In that movie, Satan tempted Jesus with images of what his life would be like if he didn’t sacrifice himself for us. Satan also showed him that the people he wanted to save didn’t deserve his altruism. Donnie had similar experiences. I’m left with a few questions as well though:
In the tangent reality, several people were killed, including Gretchen, possibly her mother, and Frank. We can also assume that Donnie’s mom and Elizabeth perished in the plane crash that sent the engine back in time to hit his bedroom.
But what will happen in the real world (after the movie ends). We can assume that Frank and Gretchen will be fine. We can also assume that Donnie’s mom will be ok too, since the neurotic captain of Sparkle Motion will be free to go on the trip with the girls due to the fact that there will be no Jim Cunningham scandal to rally against. But what about Elizabeth? Is she doomed either way? My only guess is that the neurotic woman won’t be in as much of a hurry to get back home, and won’t take that late night flight. Of course, I also wonder if that plane would be in service after bizarrely finding an exact replica (as far as they know) of one of its engines in a house somewhere a few weeks ago.
Also, what about Gretchen’s mom?
When Donnie picks himself up off the street in the opening seconds of the movie, he has the smug look of someone who had just figured something out. Did he know about the time loop? This part of the story confused me more than any other.
And lastly, I too am curious about Cherita’s role in the whole thing. Does she just represent goodness itself, and how it gets trampled in the real world?
I decided that I don’t like this movie. It’s so convoluted that people draw their best, ‘meaningful’ conclusions to what the filmmaker’s trying to say, when in reality, we are doing his work. Anyone could make a mess of a film, present it, and say; “Here, figure it out!” If you throw a lot of money into the production of a film like this one, it subliminally sends a message to the audience that it must be pretty good. ‘Why else would it be properly financed?’ ‘Why else would some respected actors be on board if the story was no good?’ This effect doesn’t work for ALL movies, but I think it did with this one.
A good movie can be deep, and it can mean different things for different people, but his film is just a pretentious mess. You can also tell it’s the filmmaker’s first ‘real’ film, because he tries to cram in any idea he’s had since high school into the picture. I’m not talking about story ideas; I’m talking about imagery, humor, and the Cherita character, hidden meanings… Whatever. It seems to me like it was a huge orgy for him after holding his creativity in for so long. From what I’ve read on SDMB’s, it doesn’t sound like he has grasp on what the movie’s actually about. Either that, or people made the story out to be better than it actually was.
I’m not sure we can assume this. When Gretchen shows up at the Darko Halloween party, she says the police had told her to go somewhere safe when she called to report her mother’s disappearance. In a world where Donnie is dead and Gretchen doesn’t know the Darkos, where would she go? She doesn’t appear to have any other friends. It seems to me that she would be at the mercy of her stepfather. This is probably the plot hole that bothered me the most.
No, because in the real universe Donnie isn’t around to magically rip the engine from the plane so it won’t crash. The engine comes from the tangent universe.
Something like that I think. In the director’s commentary he points out that Cherita’s artistic dance number is booed at the talent show, while the crowd goes wild for the cheesy “Sparkle Motion”.
I tend to agree with your criticism here (although I did enjoy the movie), but you’re mistaken in saying that a lot of money was thrown at it or that it was properly financed. Donnie Darko was made on a shoestring, with many people involved working for essentially no pay. Drew Barrymore was attracted to the project by the script, and as executive producer was responsible for helping to get it green-lighted. She probably played a role in convincing the other name actors to sign on, too.
And it’s not like Patrick Swayze’s exactly in high demand these days (the two Gyllenhaal kids were unknowns at the time so they don’t count). Who else? Wyle?
What I remember hearing at the time was that Barrymore sort of took the film under her wing and got it done because she took a shine to it, much as Lamia has indicated. From what I can recall, the Noah Wyle role could well have been added on after the fact.
I also agree with MyFootsZZZ that a lot of this movie was pretentious faux-'deep’ness and that most popular interpretations require the audience to do a lot of the work for the filmmaker. The movie still holds its appeal for me, though, maybe largely due to the imagery and the feel and tone of it.
Okay, so the movie’s a retelling of the Christ story, with J.C. recast as a possibly-more-than-slightly-schizophrenic teenager with a lot of problems. Occam’s Razor. The sci-fi stuff is a bunch of hocus pocus designed to provide a not-quite-plausible backstory for the parable that is the movie as a whole. Like the Christian mythology, it is sometimes confusing and frequently contradicts itself, but is no less powerful for its flaws.
Wham-bam. Explains the whole thing. What do you think?
Did it strike anyone else as vaguely creepy that this thread was resurrected exactly 364 days after the previous last post in March of '02?
The beauty of the movie is that it SEEMS to be about a kid who is schizophrenic, and the film SEEMS to be building toward that schizophrenia manifesting itself in some awful, violent way.
And then you figure out the time loop, and you realize that it’s not a psycho-killer movie, but a science fiction movie. Brilliant.
I just watched this excellent movie last night.
I noticed that on the web site (www.donniedarko.com or “website gallery” on the DVD), there’s an incident report from 1972 in which Donnie tried to escape from a mental institution, tearing his clothes and injuring himself on barbed wire, and claiming “They made me do it.”
If the time loop didn’t start until October 2, 1988, what’s the significance of this earlier episode?
Heh, looks like I read the report wrong. Donnie tried to escape on January 12, 1986 ('72 was the year he was born). Still, why were ghosts interfering in his life two years before the time loop?
Since seeing this thread resurrected, I wanted to add something now that I’ve back through my comments.
While I didn’t like the movie and don’t think it succeeded on any of the levels it was going for, I honestly respect the director, cast and crew for making it in the first place.
It’s better to set high narrative and artistic goals and fail to reach them than to just crank out a gross out comedy because you know it’ll make bank.
Mr2001, I think that bit about Donnie escaping from some institution was just a reference to what was said in the movie about Donnie having “caused trouble” when he was younger and why he wasn’t allowed to get a driver’s license 'til he turned 21.
Of course she doesn’t know who he is: she’s never met him in this reality, and only experienced the time loop as a dream. And like all dreams, the next morning it’s mostly forgotten except a few images and emotions. Even so, when she shows up at the Darkos’ house, there is a definite flash of recognition, both from Gretchen and from Donnie’s mom. Remember that odd little wave they exchange at the end? To me, it looked like they recognized eachother, but couldn’t figure out from where.
I think Gretchen’s mom is a red-herring. She was afraid that her step-dad had come back and hurt her mom. But later, Donnie leads her to the cellar door, where they get jumped by the crazy guy from Donnie’s highschool and his friend, who have clearly just committed a crime and are hiding out. I think they’d just returned from burglarizing Gretchen’s empty house. Where her mom is, I don’t know, and I don’t think it really matters.
That’s because he did that before he died. After Donnie shoots him, he becomes one of what Mother Death called “The Manipulated Dead,” and gains a sort of God’s-eye view of the situation.
Apparantly, Frank has some sort of a revelation after Donnie puts himself “in position” in the path of the jet engine. He has just dropped Donnie’s sister off at home, and everything flashes on him as he’s driving away. That’s why he is honking his horn like mad as he drives away-- he’s trying to signal Donnie to get the hell out of bed, because he thinks the situation has been resolved and that Donnie doesn’t have to actually die. Donnie’s satisfied smile implies that he may know more than Frank does.
As for Donnie being manipulated a coupla years before the events of the film, that’s nothing! Roberta Sparrow had been sent for a loop in the forties that made her obsess about being on the correct spot to make sure that Frank ran over Gretchen.