20 Years Later, Donnie Darko Still Eludes Us

My first viewing of Donnie Darko was when I was 17 years old. A boy I had a crush on at the time was enamoured with the movie, and he had the DVD. One day, he brought it to school and insisted I take it home with me so I could watch it over the weekend. Needless to say, I desperately wanted to like the film. But I didn’t. I fell asleep somewhere along the way, waking up only to realise I had missed most of it.

There wasn’t an opportunity to rewatch it, and truth be told, I couldn’t understand why he was even raving about it. That crush didn’t last long, but I did change my mind about the film years later, after I had developed more of an interest in film and could appreciate the stylish choices the film made, as well as the 80s nostalgia fest.

Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko evokes the same feelings as Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, a dive into the darker parts of suburbia and the restless apathy of the young. The soundscape, with tunes like Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels” and Gary Jules’ “Mad World” lends a melancholic vibe to the atmosphere, with young people drifting about in a state of ennui. Instead of producing inquisitive, bright learners, schools are more interested in conformity, where even the study of English Literature is policed by the PTA.

Instead of understanding the deeper meaning in Graham Greene’s short story The Destructors, they view it a literal light. The book is about destructors, there are students destroying school property, vis-à-vis, they must have been influenced by the book to commit such bad deeds. It’s basically the same argument about violent video games creating violent individuals, when adults should be contextualising the world for the young instead of bullishly shielding them from it. Adults are finding it harder than ever to communicate with young people, take for example the school administration and Donnie’s parents to some degree, and when there is someone able to do that, like English Lit teacher Ms Pomeroy, she still ends up losing her job due to political reasons.

If you’ve watched the movie, and read The Philosophy of Time Travel – don’t we love movies that require us to do extra readings? – you will know that a Tangent Universe has been created, and because it’s unstable, it will collapse within itself, forming a black hole within the Primary Universe, which would lead to the world ending.

But before the ending, and way before the time travel aspect starts to make sense, the film reads as an allegory of the struggles of mental health. When Donnie starts having visions of Frank (dressed in a horrifying bunny visage), who apparently seems to leading him down destructive paths, his therapist thinks it’s paranoid schizophrenia. Given Donnie’s increased social apathy, irritability, coupled with these intense visions, it’s easy to see why she feels this way. As the viewer, we think so too, perceiving that Frank’s visits are hallucinations, and that Donnie is spiraling, becoming more detached from reality. The mystery of what exactly this movie is propels us forward, but the characters and dialogue also feel incredibly authentic and relatable.

The revelations come hard and fast at the end, where a visit to Grandma Death’s house goes horribly wrong. Gretchen is involved in a fatal accident, and the driver of the said car is none other than Frank, who was really in the wrong place at the wrong time. With Frank and Gretchen dead, because he’s read The Philosophy of Time Travel, Donnie knows what he has to do. He is the Living Receiver, who has to deliver the Artifact (the part of the aircraft) back to the Primary Universe to close the loop.

The book also states that divine intervention is “deemed the only logical conclusion for the appearance of the Artifact”. This posits Donnie as a Messiah-type figure, the chosen one appointed by God to set the universe back to the way it was, and to do that, he would need to sacrifice his own life – like Greene’s book showed us, destruction is needed for creation. After Donnie floods the school, it births his new relationship with Gretchen, as the two bond on their way back home. His burning of Jim Cunningham’s house exposes the man’s salacious activities and hypocrisy. In the same way, Donnie’s death helps to reset things to the way they are supposed to be, and allows him to actually be able to keep his promise to Cherita.

Donnie, who has experienced much strife throughout the film, is seen in his last moments smiling and laughing to himself. In a way, isn’t that what all of us seek in life? We want our lives to have meaning and to have impacted our loved ones in a positive way. Before his death, Donnie grappled with the idea of how every living creature on earth dies alone, so how can there be a God, and what is the point of life? Death is inevitable and solitary, but life doesn’t have to be lonely, and it is these beautiful moments we experience while living that helps us bear the coldness of death. It also helps to perceive that there is a God guiding us down an intentioned path, that we aren’t just arbitrary results of evolution spinning towards oblivion.

The beauty of Donnie Darko is in its cool visuals, solid acting, but mainly in its inscrutability. While there is a companion text to the film, the movie itself can be read in a variety of ways, depending on the viewer’s perspective. The most generous thing a film can do is invite the audience into its rich world, to see what we make of it. I didn’t perceive much on my first viewing, but maybe that’s because someone else wanted me to like it, instead of me liking it all on my own. Years later, I found my way back into its folds, and now, every time I watch it, I know “there will be so much to look forward to”.

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