Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko
File:6990 poster.jpg Donnie Darko Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Richard Kelly
Written by	Richard Kelly
Produced by	Adam Fields Nancy Juvonen Sean McKittrick
Starring	Jake Gyllenhaal Jena Malone Patrick Swayze
Music by	Michael Andrews
Distributed by	Newmarket Films
Release dates	January 19, 2001 (Sundance Film Festival) October 28, 2001 (USA)
Running time	113 min., 133 min. (director's cut)
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$4.5 million

Donnie Darko is a 2001 psychological thriller, containing elements of science fiction, directed and written by Richard Kelly. It is about an intelligent, troubled teenager named Donald ("Donnie") J. Darko who is encouraged by an anthropomorphic rabbit to commit seemingly random acts of vandalism. Themes addressed in the film include existentialism, nihilism, sacrifice, deus ex machina, time travel, love, and fear. The movie presents paradoxes that aren't fully explained, as well as a cryptic storyline open to multiple interpretations.

The film was a flop upon its release in the US, but has found strong DVD sales and is now generally considered a cult classic, ranking 107th on the IMDb Top 250.

Cast

• Jake Gyllenhaal as Donald J. "Donnie" Darko
• Jena Malone as Gretchen Ross
• Mary McDonnell as Rose Darko
• Holmes Osborne as Eddie Darko
• Maggie Gyllenhaal as Elizabeth Darko
• Daveigh Chase as Samantha Darko
• Patrick Swayze as Jim Cunningham
• Drew Barrymore as Karen Pomeroy
• Noah Wyle as Kenneth Monnitoff
• Beth Grant as Kitty Farmer
• Katharine Ross as Dr. Lillian Thurman
• Patience Cleveland as Roberta Sparrow, AKA "Grandma Death"
• James Duval as Frank

Plot

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Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko

The film is set in 1988, in the fictional town of Middlesex, Virginia during the 1988 presidential election campaign. The viewer is introduced in the beginning to the Darko family, especially their emotionally troubled son, Donnie. Numerous scenes throughout the film show Donnie speaking to his therapist, to whom he relates most of the story of the film. Donnie is awoken from his sleep by a disembodied voice on the night of October 2 and led out of his house, where he is then confronted by a demonic man-sized rabbit named Frank. Frank tells him that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Donnie wakes up the next morning on a golf course and sees 28:06:42:12 written on his arm. He returns home to discover that a jet engine has inexplicably fallen onto his house, crushing his bedroom.

The next day Donnie goes to his private school. His English class is in the middle of a discussion on Graham Greene's short story "The Destructors" when a new girl, Gretchen, walks in late and asks where she should sit. Donnie's English teacher Ms. Pomeroy provocatively instructs Gretchen to "sit next to the boy you think is the cutest." After a few moments, Gretchen eyes Donnie and the teacher tells the girl sitting next to him to move. Later in the day, Donnie attends a gym class where he participates in an exercise in which he is asked to assign the motivation behind 'finding a lost wallet' to either "fear" or "love." But Donnie refuses, saying that the entire spectrum of emotion is far more complex than those two simple extremes. His teacher takes him to the headmaster after he tells her to "Forcefully insert the Lifeline exercise card into [her] anus" (It is unknown if that is exactly what he said, although it is most likely that he said "Shove it up your ass," as his sister indicates while talking on the phone). Donnie is suspended from after-school activities for six months.

That night, Frank wakes up Donnie again and tells him to flood the school. Donnie obeys, breaking the school's water main with an axe. While waiting for the school bus with his friends the next morning, Donnie hears that school has been cancelled because of the flood. Meanwhile, the police and school officials are baffled because aside from the flooding, the solid-bronze school mascot, the mongrel, has an axe stuck into its head and the phrase "they made me do it" has been burned into the pavement. According to detectives, the locker rooms have also been trashed and smeared with feces (which, according to a young schoolgirl talking with Donnie's sister, are baby mice). On his way home, Donnie spots Gretchen being harassed by two school bullies, and approaches to tell them that school was cancelled for the day. Gretchen asks Donnie to walk her home, to the chagrin of the bullies. Donnie tells Gretchen he is happy that school was cancelled, because otherwise they would not have had a chance to talk. He then awkwardly asks her to "go" with him, to which she assents.

Some time later, Frank asks Donnie if he believes in time travel. Donnie then questions his science teacher Dr. Monitoff about the idea, and the teacher gives him The Philosophy of Time Travel. To Donnie's surprise, the book was written by Roberta Sparrow, the 101-year-old woman nicknamed "Grandma Death." She lives alone in an old house on the edge of town and spends all day checking her mailbox and standing in the middle of the street.

Later, Donnie finds the wallet belonging to Jim Cunningham on the sidewalk. Cunningham is a successful motivational speaker whose methods Donnie had loudly denounced in front of a school assembly. Donnie and Gretchen then go on a date to a movie theater; Gretchen falls asleep in the empty theater and Frank appears. He and Donnie have a conversation, during which Donnie asks, "Why do you wear that stupid bunny-suit?" Frank replies, "Why do you wear that stupid man-suit?" After being asked by Donnie to remove his rabbit mask, Frank complies and reveals a human face with a mysterious wound in his right eye. After asking Donnie, "Have you ever seen a portal?" Showing him an image of Jim Cunningham's house on the movie screen, Frank commands, "burn it to the ground." Donnie obeys again. The arriving firemen soon discover a secret room filled with pedophilic material. As a result, Kitty Farmer, a school teacher and fervent believer in Cunningham's methods, decides to defend Cunningham. Ms. Farmer consequently asks Donnie's mother to chaperone the school dance-group, "Sparkle Motion" (of which their daughters are both members), on a trip to California to perform on Star Search. Meanwhile, Frank tells Donnie to write a letter to Grandma Death about his views on her book.

Donnie's older sister, Elizabeth, receives a letter indicating that she has been accepted into Harvard. With both of their parents out of town, Donnie and Elizabeth decide to throw a large Halloween party. During the party, Elizabeth's boyfriend also named Frank drives off to pick up more beer. After a brief romantic interlude Donnie and Gretchen leave the party and ride their bikes to the basement of Grandma Death's house to see her "cellar door" (which Donnie's English teacher Ms. Pomeroy had earlier told him was the most beautiful phrase in the English language, according to a "famous linguist". there, they come upon the two school bullies already in the basement, presumably looking for the woman's known gem collection. A struggle ensues between Gretchen, Donnie, and the two other kids, and Gretchen is thrown out onto the road outside. The viewer then sees Roberta Sparrow standing in the middle of the same road, reading Donnie's letter, when a red Trans Am appears a short distance away. It swerves to avoid the old lady and runs over Gretchen, killing her. Two people emerge from the car—first, a kid in a clown suit, and then from the driver's seat, Frank wearing a large bunny suit and holding the rabbit mask in his hand. Donnie runs to Gretchen and sees that she is dead. Donnie shoots Frank in the right eye, killing him.

Donnie then takes Gretchen's body in his arms and drives to the hilltop to watch the storm gathering strength. The plane carrying his mother and sister back from California passes through the storm, and one of its engines tumbles out of the sky after being ripped off the wing; the engine is then thrust back through the open time portal. A montage of past scenes viewed in reverse suggests Donnie traveling backwards in time. In the next scene, he is back in his bed on October 2, laughing. His sister comes home from her date and his mother lies down to sleep, just as in the beginning of the movie. The jet engine then crashes through the roof and into Donnie's room, killing him.

Afterwards the viewer sees some of the main characters alive in their respective bedrooms, perhaps recollecting varying memories from the future Tangent Universe. For example, Frank is shown in his bedroom fearfully staring at what is shown to be his bunny mask. He then proceeds to move his fingers over his right eye, the same place where Donnie shot and killed him. In the last scene, the Darko family is in turn shown outside, crying, as construction crews remove the jet engine from the house and a forensic team wheels away Donnie's shrouded corpse. Gretchen rides her bike down the street and asks a neighborhood kid what happened. Gretchen tells the neighbor that she didn't know Donnie. Donnie's mother and Gretchen then exchange looks and Gretchen waves. It seems that Donnie's mother (Rose) is one of the few "manipulated living" that remember the tangent universe.

Director's cut

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Director's Cut: USA DVD Cover

A director's cut of the movie was released on May 29th, 2004 in Seattle, Washington at the Seattle International Film Festival, and was released in New York and Los Angeles on July 23rd, 2004. This new cut includes twenty minutes of extra footage, an altered soundtrack, and most significantly excerpts from the book The Philosophy of Time Travel. The director's cut DVD, released on February 15th, 2005, included the new footage and more soundtrack changes, as well as some additional features exclusive to the two-DVD set: excerpts from the storyboard, a 52-minute production diary, "#1 fan video," a "cult following" video interviewing British fans, and the new director's cut cinematic trailer. The director's cut DVD was released as a giveaway with copies of the British Sunday Times newspaper on February 19th, 2006. PG-13

Differences

In the director's cut:

• The opening-scene song was changed from Echo and the Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" to INXS's "Never Tear Us Apart". The INXS song was the intended original number. "The Killing Moon" later replaces "Under the Milky Way" by The Church during the party scene. "Under The Milky Way" instead plays on the radio in the car scene with Donnie and his father.
• In the original cut, when Donnie walks into the kitchen at the end of the first scene, the opening music fades and the "The Killing Moon" is playing on a radio in the kitchen. Yet this is not so for "Never Tear Us Apart" in the Director's Cut.
• Donnie follows an opaque sphere while watching the football game; the sphere does not form a finger and beckon him, as in the original.
• Donnie's psychiatrist informs him that his pills are placebos and tells him that he is an agnostic, and not an atheist as he thinks.
• The Holiday Inn scene is longer.
• Several scenes in Ms. Pomeroy's classroom are re-inserted: Donnie reading his own poetry about Frank in class, the teacher announcing the banning of Graham Greene's The Destructors and its replacement with Watership Down, and the class later watching the animated adaptation of Watership Down.
• Frank does not apologize in the theater during The Evil Dead.
• Karen Pomeroy's firing is shorter, while the scene in which Donnie asks her about the words "cellar door" is longer and contains almost entirely different dialogue.
• Various transition scenes show chapter excerpts from Roberta Sparrow's The Philosophy of Time Travel.
• There is more of Donnie and Gretchen, including an arcade scene with Donnie playing the race-car game Outrun. In the game the car is red, as is human Frank's car.
• In a new scene Donnie's mother and father are eating dinner in a restaurant as they discuss Donnie.
• Donnie and Elizabeth are shown carving pumpkins. Donnie carves his into the shape of Frank's mask.
• The shot of Donnie's eyes bulging as his face enters the sphere at the Halloween party is completely removed.
• A montage of fireworks, clips from the animated film Watership Down, and shots from Outrun video game are superimposed over Donnie's final narration at the end of the film.
• The scene in which Frank first wakes Donnie is longer.
• Certain events first appear as images within Deus ex Machina's eye. Deus ex Machina is described by director Richard Kelly in the audio commentary for the Director's Cut. The first image of Frank flashes in Deus ex Machina's pupil as Frank wakes him, the second image is that of rushing water to represent the flooding of the school, and there is a shot of fire in Deus ex Machina's eyes before Frank tells him to burn Cunningham's house down (replacing a full-screen shot of Cunningham's house on fire). The eye appears everytime Donnie is sent a task, therefore, the M.C. Escher "Eye" with the skull within the pupil can be thought as Donnie's task to die, ensuring the closure of the Tangent Universe, and the survival of the human race.
• The deleted scenes (included in the first DVD release) are hidden as easter eggs

Director's interpretation

Writer/Director Richard Kelly does not deny personal interpretations but has expressed his own theories through the extra commentary on the two DVDs, his own (fictional) book the Philosophy of Time Travel, and in various other interviews.

According to Kelly and his Philosophy of Time Travel, at midnight on October 2 a Tangent Universe branches off the Primary Universe around the time when Donnie is called out of his bedroom by Frank, immediately before the appearance of the Artifact, the errant jet engine. The inherently unstable Tangent Universe will collapse in just over 28 days and take the Primary Universe with it if not corrected. Closing the Tangent Universe is the duty of the Living Receiver, Donnie, who wields certain supernatural powers to help him in the task.

Those who have died/will die within the Tangent Universe are the Manipulated Dead (Frank and Gretchen). Manipulated Dead Frank at least is also given certain powers in that he is able to subtly understand what is happening and have the ability to contact and influence the Living Receiver via the Fourth Dimensional Construct (water). All others within the orbit of the Living Receiver are the Manipulated Living (e.g. Ms. Pomeroy, Dr. Monnitoff), subconsciously drawn to push him towards his destiny to close the Tangent Universe and, according to the Philosophy of Time Travel, die by the Artifact.

There are two "Franks" in the story: the living boyfriend of Donnie's sister Elizabeth, and the Manipulated Dead Frank who appears to Donnie as a premonition from the future in the disturbing rabbit suit (the second Frank is dead, or undead, for at the end of the film he is killed by Donnie). Dead Frank is aware of Donnie's fate and destiny, and thus has the ability to appear to Donnie via time travel and thus guide him.

Production

The movie was shot in 28 days (coincidentally similar to the length of the Tangent Universe),, on a budget of 4.5 million U.S. dollars. It almost went straight to DVD, but was saved by financial backing from the production company Flower Films.

The story takes place in Middlesex, Virginia, but was filmed in California. The scenes at Donnie's school were filmed in part in Loyola High School, a prominent Catholic institution located in Los Angeles, California. The Aero Theatre where Donnie and Gretchen watch the double feature is an actual movie theater in Santa Monica, California.

There are a few inconsistencies in the movie which show that the plot is not actually happening in Virginia. For example, Autumn is well underway by October in Virginia, and the foliage does not retain its greenery throughout the month; flowers do not remain in bloom, etc. Due to the Earth's axial tilt during Fall, the Sun would not shine so brightly in the sky during October as well. Furthermore, during the scene where school is cancelled, and Gretchen asks Donnie to walk her home, if one looks closely, palm trees adorning several neighbors' lawns in the background are noticeable; palms do not grow in Virginia.

There is also an inconsistency near the end of the movie in the scene where Seth Devlin, the school bully, has Donnie on the ground with a knife to his throat. This is a continuity error in which the blade's edge switches back and forth from Donnie's throat and away from his throat.

In the scene where the gym teacher has the students marking the board to indicate where a certain situation falls between love and fear, Cherita comes to draw her mark on the board before Donnie is called up. When he goes up, the girl's mark is not there.

Reception

When the movie was publicly screened for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival, critic Andy Bailey billed Donnie Darko as a "Sundance surprise" that "isn't spoiled by the Hollywood forces that helped birth it."

Although critically acclaimed, Donnie Darko debuted in US theatres in October of 2001 to a lukewarm response. Shown on only 58 screens nationwide, the film grossed $110,494 in its opening weekend. By the time the film closed in US theatres on April 11, 2002, it had grossed $517,375.

Despite the poor showing at the box office, the film had attracted a devoted fan base. Donnie Darko was released on DVD in March, 2002. During this time, the Pioneer Theatre in New York City's East Village began midnight screenings of Darko that continued for 28 consecutive months.

Strong DVD sales led Newmarket Films to release a "Director's Cut" edition on DVD in 2005. Bob Berney, President of Newmarket Films, described Darko as "a runaway hit on DVD," citing US DVD sales of more than $10 million. That same year, composer Michael Andrews and singer Gary Jules found their piano-driven cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" (a song from the Donnie Darko soundtrack played when different characters are shown in their bedrooms at the end of the movie) at the top of the UK Christmas number-one single music charts in 2003.

Awards and nominations

2001 — Richard Kelly won with Donnie Darko for "Best Screenplay" at the Catalonian International Film Festival and at the San Diego Film Critics Society. Donnie Darko also won the "Audience Award" for Best Feature at the Sweden Fantastic Film Festival. The film was nominated for "Best Film" at the Catalonian International Film Festival and for the "Grand Jury Prize" at the Sundance Film Festival.

2002 — Donnie Darko won the "Special Award" at the Young Filmmakers Showcase at the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. The movie also won the "Silver Scream Award" at the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. In 2002 Kelly was nominated for "Best First Feature" and "Best First Screenplay" with Donnie Darko, as well as Jake Gyllenhaal being nominated for "Best Male Lead" at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film was also nominated for the "Best Breakthrough Film" at the Online Film Critics Society Awards.

2003 — Jake Gyllenhaal won for "Best Actor" and Richard Kelly for "Best Original Screenplay" for Donnie Darko at the Chlotrudis Awards, where Kelly was also nominated for "Best Director" and "Best Movie."

2005 — Donnie Darko ranked in the top five on My Favourite Film, an Australian poll conducted by the ABC.

2006 — Donnie Darko ranks ninth in FilmFour's 50 Films to See Before You Die.

It also came in at number 14 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.

Related products

• The Donnie Darko Book (2003), written by Richard Kelly and introduced by Jake Gyllenhaal, explained some of the film's details.
• NECA released a six-inch (15 cm) figure of Frank the Bunny, and later, a foot-tall (30 cm) 'talking' version of the same figure.

Trivia

• Kelly’s DVD commentary reveals that the man in the red jogging suit is an FAA agent monitoring the Darko family.
• The classroom scene where Kitty Farmer makes the students go through Cunningham's fear/love exercise is based on a similar exercise Richard Kelly remembers from his own school days.
• Graham Greene was born on October 2, the same night on which Donnie sees Frank for the first time.
• The "famous linguist" who said cellar door were the most beautiful words in the English language was in fact J.R.R. Tolkien, though Richard Kelly in the commentary says it is Edgar Allan Poe. (See also Franz Kafka.)
• The 1950 film Harvey also features a rabbit that only appears to the protagonist, but in a decidedly lighter context than the rabbit of Donnie Darko. Harvey himself is never physically on screen, even though several characters in the film acknowledge his presence.
• The Trans Am with which Frank runs over Gretchen is seen in the opening sequence when Donnie is riding his bike.
• The wallpaper on the Darkos staircase (seen when Donnie is following the sphere) is in the pattern of rabbit Frank.
• The "cured" boy in the "Cunning Visions" tape also appears at the school assembly; he asks Cunningham, "how can I learn to fight?" He is also shown throwing leaves into the fan during the "autumn angel" talent show routine.
• The woman from the "Cunning Visions" tape appears in the school later, showing the news of Jim Cunningham's arrest to Miss Farmer.
• The graffiti on the school plaza ("they made me do it") is in the same handwriting as Frank's message on the refrigerator dry-erase board at the Halloween party ("Frank was here, went to get BEER").
• Sam Raimi, director of The Evil Dead, allowed Richard Kelly to use and distort footage from that film free of charge.
• The DVD contains several easter eggs, or hidden items. Two are visible in the "Philosophy of Time Travel" book in Special Features. On each of the appendix pages, press the up arrow and press enter. Doing this on Appendix A shows a deleted scene about the flooding of the school, and Appendix B shows a different trailer for the movie. Another easter egg can be found after selecting the "Cunning Visions" menu screen. At the bottom of the screen, highlight the Special Features menu entry, press the right arrow to highlight the icon, and press enter to enter a Web site gallery.
• The original poster art for the movie had been using an Arabic-style font, but this was changed to the much more standard serif typeface font for the video release after the terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001. The title remains in the same style in the film.
• Tiler Peck, the young actress who portrays Beth Farmer, one of the members of Sparkle Motion, is now a soloist with the New York City Ballet.

In popular culture

• In a deleted scene for the film Clerks II, Dante makes a reference to a "Donnie Darko tangent universe" to Randal.

External links

• DonnieDarko.com - official film website, with the director's cut trailer
• Donnie Darko at IMDb
• Donnie Darko at Rotten Tomatoes
• Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Donnie Darko FAQ
• Extensive analysis of the film by Lawrence Person
• Cellar Door: with web site guide
• eSnips.com - The Artifact and Living by Michael Andrews (mp3 clip)