Donnie suffers from the daylight hallucinations of a paranoid schizophrenic (in some cases symptoms emerge as auditory hallucinations, or both). In his visual hallucinations, he sees a giant bunny. Rather, someone dressed in a bunny suit who appears to him in dreams, while he sleepwalks, or when alone. The bunny speaks in slow, sedated speech, a speaking tinged with robotic tones. This bunny gives him a random amount of time before the "world will end": 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. Donnie tries to fathom this timeline as the film progresses, wondering what it could mean, what he should do, and what death ultimately might represent.
The basic storyline is split, much like a schizophrenic's episode might occur in their mind; the simultaneous happening of two elements, concepts, ideas that do not seem to be able to merge into one out of a contradiction in reason. In the film, there is a crash, but the crash happens in two different ways. The first crash goes straight through Donnie's house harming no one, and the entire family (including Donnie's mom, dad, and two sisters) is forced to sleep in a hotel for a while as their house is being investigated and repaired. The second crash happens at the end and kills Donnie, but saves another's timeline (the timeline of life) - one in which his girlfriend (Gretchen) isn't killed (run over) by a speeding car. One of my favorite lines in the film is when Donnie's talking to his Dad after the crash and letting him know that the FBI doesn't want the family to tell anyone what actually happened. The thing is, no one actually knows what happened, hence:
"So we're not supposed to tell anyone, but nobody knows."
The two storylines weave and intersect like an intricate tapestry, meeting somewhere in the middle. Decidedly, the storyline's beginning and end are two separate threads, aiming ahead towards each other and meeting at a point in the middle, a strange kind of profound depth that chronological storytelling misses, making this film quite unique and powerful (some other films may have done this, Pulp Fiction maybe, or Arrival, but Donnie Darko does it in such a way that is relevant to adolescence, coming-of-age, American suburban life, and the '80s). The metaphor of the wobbly, bubbly, translucent energy tube coming out of Donnie's chest, leading him here or there in certain parts of the film, reminds the audience of how Kelly's storyline is working - instead of a story "walking" on a flat 2-dimensional level (think of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs) the story instead moves 3-dimensionally, inward and outward instead of across. How Donnie's heart-chakra/aura (if that is what it is. That's what it seems like to me) moves from inside of him to outside of him, appearing as that holographic, watery tube of energy. This is kind of how Kelly's storytelling is moving, if not cinematographically, then conceptually. This is especially fascinating because there are levels of metaphysics here in the dialogue, then again in Donnie's inner world, then again in the actual plot. However, there is a simple problem that remains, if anyone should decide to solve the mystery of time presented (which I won't, not in this piece at least): the problem of cause and effect.
What I'm interested in is Donnie's character - his special take on reality. He cares deeply about his family, yet it seems as if he feels like he is the last one, like the only one remaining in a place full of the kinetic and potential energy of future plans (his older sister partying with boys and going to Harvard, his younger sister in a popular dance group and worried about other things, even his mother and his father's somewhat humdrum life of bourgeois drama). And Donnie is the nucleus of the place without asking for it or wanting to be. He sees outsiders, like Cherita (a minority in the spotlight of this film, sticking out from the crowd of puffy-haired girls, "well-adjusted" and accent-free teens) and Gretchen, the new girl in town who is ostracized for her mysterious, and violent, background, and just for being sensitive and authentic (for whatever reason a cause of jealousy and disrespect).
Donnie also points out people's bullshit when he can. The motivational speaker whose house he burns down: that man is the film's symbol of heartless, meaningless capitalist garbage, also a pedophile. Or the physical education teacher, who tries to feed to the class the ideology that life is a scale balanced by two emotions: love and fear. It's as if Donnie is frustrated with all the ideologies or thought systems being fed into the social structure of his neighborhood, and being schizophrenic is just the thing that pushes him over the edge to go ahead and punish that world for its lies. He sets the motivational speaker's house on fire. He floods the school. This ties into the story his English teacher assigns, The Destructors by Graham Greene:
Donnie comments on the book: "...the fact that they burn the money is ironic. They just wanna see what happens when they turn the world apart and wanna change things."
Striking is the fact that this is exactly what the bullies and assholes of the high school do at the very end. With masks on, they find Gretchen and Donnie in a hidden cellar, grab them and try to attack them. These bullies, in fact, are pissed that Donnie always gets away with everything (such as flooding the school), and everything is immediately blamed at them instead. Sure, they are probably accountable for a lot of awful things that might've happened (including the potential harassment of Gretchen early on) but that doesn't stop them from being angry at Donnie for getting away with certain things, including axing the head of the school's stone mascot. But, ultimately, Donnie's revenge is purer, more meaningful, and isn't just an "acting out". Donnie is literally sick, empty, alone, doing things buried deep in his unconscious mind. Donnie's world is on pause as everyone else goes on unthinkingly. Donnie's world is almost at a stop and all he can do is observe, heavy-headed, with vague and almost impossible attempts at grasping rhyme and reason.
His physics teacher is a person Donnie tries to reach out to as a way or putting some pieces together. This fails, as his teacher is fundamentally stuck to empiricism and objectivity. While the English teacher is another trustworthy person, she herself is dealing with issues within the administration and within herself (see the cartoon bunny scene in which she unconvincely asks Donnie to consider Deux Ex Machina. Gretchen's simpler response is much more convincing).
Donnie does, however, find solace in an old crazy woman - Roberta Sparrow - someone who has lived in the town for many years. She's known as Grandma Death. His physics teacher provides Donnie with her book The Philosophy of Time Travel.
"I'm seeing stuff, like a lot of really messed up stuff. And the stuff in there is describing what I'm seeing. It can't just be a coincidence."
The fact that Donnie can now recognize his world in another's work is key. Paradoxically, it is Grandma Death who tells Donnie that "every creature on earth dies alone", yet it is Grandma Death's book that makes Donnie feel less alone. Could it be that Grandma Death told him what he needed to hear to scare the bejeezus out of him and get him to thinking of possible ways to die otherwise? Who knows? Tell me.
Donnie Darko is truly a masterpiece and one of my favorite films ever. I'm glad I got this out and was able to write about it. I've seen the film too many times to count, and I think I'm going to put it away for a little while now until I think it is the right occasion to view it again. Interestingly, this last viewing was the most aggravating viewing. Every other time I've watched it I've been suspended by disbelief, enthralled, melancholy in an oddly nostalgic way. This viewing was like a purging, a goodbye to those chapters of my life reflected in the form of cinema: namely, traditional academia and school in general. Maybe I'll look back again, but for now, I'm ready to move forward, onward into the present.
Note: I had to watch this on YouTube, so the film was missing some key scenes. To see the best version, see the Director's Cut. I've a beautiful edition of it here at home:
- F
