Donnie Darko

I have just watched 'Donnie Darko', a psychological thriller about a teenager who is tormented by the visions of Frank, a giant rabbit that comes from the future. An airplane jet engine crashes through Donnie's bedroom while he is outside talking to Frank. Frank tells him that the world will end in 28 days, and convinces him to commit a series of crimes and leads him to find out about time travel. The end of the film is very confusing, so to be clearer about it I researched and found an explanation to the film.

"The jet engine is actually from the future. There was a corruption in time and the engine fell through it and arrived on October 2nd. This has now created a Tangent Universe (TU) and the next 28 days is set in this alternate reality. This TU will only last 28 days, 6 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds before it collapses and destroys itself and the Primary Universe. 

Artifacts are evidence that a TU has been created, they are made from metal. The jet engine in this case is the Artifact. The only way to prevent the universe being destroyed is to guide the Artifact back into the Primary Universe through a time portal. This will close the TU and restore the Primary Universe at the point the TU was created (Oct 2nd). 

Donnie is chosen as the Living Receiver. It’s the Living Receiver’s role to guide the Artifact back to the Primary Universe. The Living Receiver is usually blessed with some supernatural powers during their time in the TU including Increased strength, the ability to conjure fire and water and telekinesis. [...]

Anyone connected to the Living Receiver who dies in the TU becomes Manipulated Dead. These people are very powerful and have the ability to travel through time. Frank is killed in the TU and therefore becomes one of the Manipulated Dead. He travels back in time and helps Donnie with his quest to return the Artifact. The first thing he must do is save Donnie by waking him up before he gets squashed by the jet engine.


All the people connected to the Living Receiver are the Manipulated Living and these people will subconsciously help guide the Living receiver. They will behave in the exact perfect way necessary to push Donnie toward his eventual destiny. [...]


At the end of the film a timestorm starts to form as Donnie drives up the mountain, it’s the beginning of the TU collapse and is centred over Donnie’s house which is where the TU began. Donnie constructs a time portal from water and guides the engine through it. This restores the Primary Universe back to October 2nd, the birth of the TU. The last 28 days never happened and Donnie wakes up in his bed laughing. The jet engine Donnie sent through the time portal then falls into his bedroom killing him."

The film audience clearly is older people as it demands a lot of intellectual effort to understand the story. The film is not very active throughout, but the idea behind it is interesting. I got very involved with the main character because I felt that the use of camera, sound and editing really got me into his mind.

For example, many times when he was seeing Frank, we would get a camera point of view shot exactly from the same angle as Donnie. When he was hearing Frank, Frank's voice was hypnotic and echoing, which gives us a sense of being into Donnie's mind and hearing exactly what he hears.

Often when Donnie had a connection with time travel or the Tangent Universe we would get a close up of his eyes and some special effects which would make it look like a robot/computer configuration. I think that his character is very interesting and for our thriller it would be nice to create or present a character inspired by Donnie Darko.

 In general, the film creates suspense not only by showing Donnie's tormented perspective, but also with the use of mise en scene and music - which I found particularly good. They use the weather (storm) to anticipate things, also the city seems to be in the middle of nowhere.

The most suspenseful parts usually were set in an empty place with low lighting. There was one main piano music throughout and I believe that the sound of piano helped to create suspense, besides there were some special effects like whooshing sounds that built tension.