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Chapter 1 — What is the Timeline of events?

Rosseter of Twin Perfect said this about Twin Peaks:

ROSSETER: [Y]ou kind of have to explain everything before you can explain anything.1

The same is true for Donnie Darko. There’s just no obvious starting point in explaining it, so, let’s start at the beginning.

The movie begins on the morning of Saturday, 1 October 1988. Donnie is waking up from sleepwalking, well, sleep-biking to Carpathian Ridge—a remote cliff in his hometown of Middlesex, Virginia. On top of somnambulism, Donnie has many mental problems, and it’s revealed that he is under the care of a psychiatrist.

That night, the morning of Sunday, 2 October 1988 at 1:30AM, A jet engine crashes into the Darko house, killing Donnie instantly. The Darko family and friends cope with the loss.

Now let’s go way, way, way into the future. Several technological advances happen and someone or something is so powerful that it can see into the past and even change the past. 

Kelly: Has someone broken the barrier in space and time for the very first time? For me, that’s sort of the idea that I’m trying to put out there . . . [S]omeone . . . in the distant future has . . . broken a barrier back to 1988 and they’re looking at 1988 right now, and they’re contacting this guy. . . Donnie . . . you’re seeing a super-power.2

We’ll call this entity “God” since that’s what he’s called by Donnie in the film and by Richard Kelly in interviews. Remember, this isn’t any specific god from any specific religion, this is the entity called “God” that is specific to this one film.

God decides to change the past so that Donnie Darko does not die on 2 October. The method God uses to save Donnie is to appear to him as FRANK—a spooky rabbit monster. Frank simply commands him to get out of the house. Donnie leaves after 1 AM, shortly before the jet engine hits the house.

Now we have a new timeline. If you saw Back to the Future Part II this is old hat. Everything from this point is new and different.

As the events of the film unfold, Donnie becomes convinced that “the world will end” in some way on the morning of 30 October 1988, a little more than 28 days in the future. 

Most of the movie happens in this divergent timeline, and at the time specified as “the end of the world” an airplane carrying Donnie’s mother and younger sister is flying overhead. A wormhole opens up and sucks one of the engines into it and shunts it back in time. Now we know where the engine came from—it came from the future—specifically a future that now retroactively does not happen.

Here’s where a lot of people get confused. The event that causes the divergent universe is not the jet engine, it’s Donnie leaving the house. Donnie stays in his bed in one timeline and leaves the house in the other timeline. This main timeline—THE PRIMARY UNIVERSE—has been restored. The jet engine crashes into the house in both timelines. How is that possible?

Well, this is a minor point, but one that I will address since it seems to be the source of so much confusion. Any event common to both universes necessarily had to happen before the point of divergence. But the jet engine crashes after Donnie leaves the house. Are there two points of divergence? No. The engine needs time to fall through the sky. We know that because Elizabeth’s boyfriend honks the horn before the engine hits the house. If he can see it that far in advance, we can extrapolate how fast, or rather, how slowly it’s moving, and the numbers work out. The point is that Donnie’s presence is the only difference. The jet engine hits the house at 1:30AM no matter what.

Donnie is in a causality loop or simply a time paradox. He has to send the jet engine back in time because the jet engine was there. Why was the jet engine there? Because Donnie sent it. It’s circular logic. Like all stories with a causality loop, there is no inciting incident. This is a feature and not a bug. The relationship between cause and effect that defines stories (and reality) is missing. It’s weird. It provokes anxiety. It’s overdone, but I credit Donnie Darko for doing it well.

This idea was used in The Terminator (1984), 12 Monkeys (1995), The Star Trek Voyager episode “Time and Again,” Time Crimes (2007), Predestination (2014), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Tenet (2020) and of course Paradox (2016)—not a good film, but a masterclass in constructing a causality loop.

Let’s return to Frank’s initial contact with Donnie. 

Frank: Twenty-eight days, six hours, forty-two minutes, twelve seconds. That is when the world will end.

What does it mean for the world to end? God wants Donnie to end the Tangent Universe, and Donnie does that. But the Tangent Universe was created by Frank’s intervention and Frank is an agent of God, so . . . did God change his mind? Yes. Richard Kelly explains in his commentary to the Director’s Cut:

Kelly: Whoever is behind the technology or whoever somehow ruptured the space-time continuum, they’re trying to fix this thing.3

This is critical to understanding the film. We are watching God sloppily clean up the mess he created. God is omnipotent and omniscient but not wise.

God, like the adults in Donnie Darko, seem all-powerful, but they’re a bunch of boobs with a lot power struggling to figure things out.

Chapter 3 - What Is ‘Real’ in Donnie Darko?

What is literal and what is metaphorical? Usually, a movie with so many things that don’t make sense is meant to be symbolic . . . or it’s just badly written, but I like to think that I weed those films out.

We cannot take the film literally, at least not entirely. When trying to explain a cryptic film, I always advise to look at the small things along with the big things. Forget about demon rabbits and time travel; there are a lot of small, subtle things that don’t make sense.

The film’s location, Middlesex, Virginia is an impossibility. The unpaved side street—Old Gun Road—where Roberta Sparrow lives, is the most important street in town. Everybody has to take this road to get anywhere. Traveling from school to Dr. Thurman’s house—Old Gun Road. Traveling from School to the Farmer house—Old Gun Road. Traveling from the liquor store to the Darko house—Old Gun Road. The characters are drawn to this location in an unnatural way.

Richard Kelly has often claimed that Donnie Darko is supposed to be a superhero. He has an alliterative name, he fights for a cause outside the law, and he has superpowers. However, he also has an attribute of superheroes rarely discussed—unrealistic access to resources. He has an axe when he goes to vandalize the school. This is an industrial axe, not the kind that a suburban home would have. Did the school have it? Does Leroy moonlight as a lumberjack? 

Where does he get the gasoline for the fire? When he walks to the house, he’s empty handed. Cunningham kept a large can of gasoline in his house in case a neighborhood kid wanted to get revenge?

Where did Donnie get the gun? From his parents’ bedroom? Well, okay, but did he have it on his person from the minute he left his house? If so, why didn’t he pull it on Seth when Seth was trying to murder him. The simple answer is that he didn’t want to or didn’t need to pull a gun on Seth, so he didn’t have a gun. Not so for poor Frank.

Batman (1966) made fun of this trope when Batman is attacked by a shark and he not only has shark repellent, but he has Batman branded shark repellent. This is a conscious choice by the filmmakers to reference superhero tropes.

There’s more. Look at the whiteboard on the refrigerator in the Darkos’ house. Donnie takes the marker, and it’s never replaced, but people keep writing things on it. It’s not impossible that they all have their own markers, but, for our purposes, isn’t it more useful to think that the things written on the whiteboard are written for our benefit? There were script supervisors, continuity, and a props department. If this was a continuity error, someone would have fixed it. The filmmakers wanted it this way. The important thing is that we cannot understand Donnie Darko as a literal, naturalistic work.

So where does that leave us? Well, let’s talk about Donnie himself.

Chapter 5 - What are ‘the Manipulated Dead?

I covered the fact that the other characters in the movie are being manipulated by God, but “The Philosophy of Time Travel” differentiates between The Manipulated Living and The Manipulated Dead, and the rules seem inconsistent at first glance.

Frank is supposed to be a “special” manipulated person since he dies in the Tangent Universe and returns as a “reverse ghost”—a specter appearing before death instead of afterwards. Gretchen is also a Manipulated Dead and she doesn’t act any differently than the other characters. I’ll explain this discrepancy later. Let’s stay focused on Frank.

While logically, Donnie should know Frank, the two never meet in the Tangent Universe. The only time they cross paths, prior to the ending, is when Donnie bikes home and Frank drives by. That’s him in his Red Trans-Am. Perhaps he spent the night at the Darko house and was sneaking out.

It’s very obscured, but Frank is Elizabeth’s boyfriend.

Elizabeth: (into the phone) No. I took a year off to be with you.

That’s Frank she's talking to. She must be committed to him to delay college for a year.

When an off-screen character honks the horn before the jet engine crashes into the house, that’s Frank. When Frank leaves the Halloween party to get beer, that’s not supposed to be cryptic. It’s “alive” Frank going to get beer for the party. Donnie is disturbed by the message, as if he is remembering something. Is he remembering that Frank, the ghost, is Frank, his sister’s boyfriend? That would be very strange. Why would he forget his sister’s boyfriend? A better question would be: why does the film bend over backwards to keep “alive” Frank out of the story?

It’s because the story itself is a manipulation. We, the audience, are being kept in the dark. Does Donnie know that Frank, the ghost, is an incarnation of his older sister’s boyfriend? It doesn’t seem like it. When Dead Frank removes his mask, Donnie doesn’t react like he knows who it is. Donnie “remembers” who Frank is exactly when we learn who Frank is. When Donnie carves a pumpkin to look like the demonic rabbit head, Elizabeth doesn’t say, “hey that looks just like the Halloween mask my boyfriend is making.” At the Halloween party, Elizabeth asks a friend something she may as well be asking the audience.

Elizabeth: Have you guys seen Frank?

The movie itself seems to be answering the question when Donnie sees the whiteboard. “Frank was here went to get BEER.” This is an epiphany for Donnie. Is he remembering that Frank is Frank, or is he knowing it for the first time? We, the audience, are knowing it for the first time, but Donnie should already know this. What’s going on?

To answer these questions, we just have to do one simple thing and explain the nature of God.

Chapter 6 - Who is God?

God is pushing Donnie to do things, and at a certain point the will of God and the will of Donnie are indistinguishable. This implies that God isn’t merely intervening, but God has created and is controlling everything, which is “on brand,” I guess.

This means that the diegesis of Donnie Darko is indistinguishable from the imagination of God and therefore the “God” character is the real-life creator of the story.

Richard Kelly is God. The movie documents Kelly creating a “universe” so complex that it has branching timelines—contingencies in case Kelly revises the narrative. The movie is Kelly recalling his life.

However, Donnie Darko is not a stand-in for Kelly. So who is Donnie? Donnie Darko is the dark teenager that Richard Kelly did not become. Kelly is recalling his decision to conform, and to not transgress. When the jet engine kills Donnie, that’s Kelly, in his youth, deciding to not be a “dark” kid. 

When Frank, prompted by “God” in the future, stops Donnie’s demise, that’s Kelly wondering what life would be like if he had made a different choice. What if he had told off the authoritarian gym teacher? What if he had told off the hypocritical speaker? What if he had made a move on that cute girl? What if he broke and burned down the institutions that he despised? This ultimately leads to consequences so terrible, that, metaphorically, the world has ended.

Early in the film, Donnie predicts his future and fantasizes about the present:

Donnie:    I think when I grow up, I want to be a painter. Or maybe a writer or maybe both. Then I'll write a book and draw the illustrations like a comic book. You know, change things.

Gretchen:    Donnie Darko is a cool name. Sounds like a superhero.

Donnie:     What makes you think I'm not?

Richard Kelly can grow up to be an artist—a goal that can be achieved in the real world—the Primary Universe. Being a superhero is not a goal that can be achieved in reality, so it happens in a fantasy—the Tangent Universe.

Now, keep in mind that God doesn’t have to be specifically Richard Kelly, but Generation X in general who is the confabulator. I have to pause the explanation and talk about representation. Kelly represents some members of Generation X, but at least Kelly has some self-awareness about his privilege. This is him from the director’s commentary which he did with director Kevin Smith, who, I guess, just gets to be on director commentaries:

Richard Kelly: I’m a white, upper-middle class American male teenager growing up, and I guess my story is . . . a lot easier to get made than if I were, you know, a bisexual Eskimo who was hearing impaired . . . I had the benefit of maybe telling a story about the all-American suburbs that is easier to push through the system.

Kevin Smith: I would really like to see the time traveling bisexual Eskimo picture.5

Inelegantly stated (Eskimo is not the proper term for Inuits, Aleuts and Yapiks) but true nonetheless. We need to get more marginalized people into niche cinema.

Okay, back to the explanation. Kelly, in roughly 1999, regrets his decision to be a meek conformist and rethinks his decision. He mentally goes back to when he was young and recounts the hypothetical future imagined by his younger self. This is the Tangent Universe.

But, of course, the story doesn’t end there. Twenty-four-year-old Kelly regrets the decision. So, he has Donnie Darko survive the accident so he can retroactively be that person in the past. However, Kelly then regrets that decision, and now he has to get this story to be identical to the story he created when he was young, or there is no good reason for him to have not become Donnie Darko.

This is why things happen in forward and backwards time and why Donnie’s agency diminishes over time. 11-year-old Kelly is creating this story from the past moving forward, and he can alter the story based on his whim, so Donnie has agency. 24-year-old Kelly is remembering the story and getting it to conform to the established story, forcing Donnie to do things he has to do because he already did it. The bizarre inconsistencies of Donnie Darko are all about cognitive dissonance.

[A] Tangent Universe . . . will collapse upon itself, forming a black hole within the Primary Universe capable of destroying all existence.

If we think of the Primary Universe as reality, and the Tangent Universe as a wholly imagined alternative version, then we can understand what “the black hole” is. If Kelly is getting so wrapped up in his imagination, he will eventually become delusional. The Primary Universe is the real world as remembered by Kelly, so if the Tangent Universe is what he “remembers,” then he has lost touch with reality. This is the Primary Universe falling into a black hole.

At the end of the film when Donnie and God are one, this figment of Kelly’s imagination is doing what Kelly insists he do, as would happen in an ordered mind. Kelly has returned to sanity meaning that he remembers reality meaning that the Primary Universe is saved.

Kelly: I think I was probably going mentally insane when I wrote this . . . 6

He may have been exaggerating, but the seemingly arbitrary time limit that Frank gives—twenty-eight days—that’s how long it took Kelly to write the screenplay and Kelly has acknowledged that he used that length of time for that reason. 7 8

If Donnie is not Richard Kelly, is there a character who does represent Kelly? Yes. It’s David—The little kid at the end of the movie who talks to Gretchen.

Kelly: People ask who I am in this movie . . . I wasn’t Donnie Darko. I was this kid. This was me.9

David is the young version of Richard Kelly who first imagines becoming Donnie Darko. This kid is not dark, literally and figuratively. He’s sweet, guileless and pale with blonde hair. 

The two sides of the street represent two paths for Kelly. He can be Donnie or he can be David. You might be thinking, “now, wait a minute, Hammer. This kid has three lines! A director self-insert wouldn’t be such a minor character.” Well, the film is called Donnie Darko not David Lighto. The movie isn’t about David just as it’s not autobiographical. The movie is an exciting story about the monster Kelly did not become. Would you pay to see a movie about the nice kid that Kelly did become? The very last shot is David showing empathy—a kind of impotent empathy—a sign that he is conformist, not transgressive. This is the final shot of the film.

And why did Kelly choose to not be Donnie Darko? Because of morality? Because of principles? Because he loves his family? Well, yeah, but let’s be realistic. Just before the Tangent Universe is annihilated, the cops show up. We don’t know if they figured out that Donnie vandalized the school, burned down Cunningham’s house, killed Frank, or some combination, but this is the reason why more people are orderly. Society has a monopoly on violence to control rebellion. Richard Kelly didn’t want to be punished.

But is that it? Are there only two choices, just like Mrs. Farmer claims? Kelly can be a meek conformist or a violent psychopath? Kind of, yeah. The something in between, someone who rebels in a constructive way, who works within the system, this is essentially impossible. Generation X was not raised with these skills. We couldn’t find a third way if we wanted to. Parents, school and society conditioned us to think that we could be good or bad.

Donnie: You're just lumping everything into these two categories . . . and, like, denying everything else.

Yup, she sure is. This happens to Donnie, and it happened to Richard Kelly.

Chapter 7 - Who is Frank?

Having established that Frank is Elizabeth’s boyfriend, that he’s a “reverse ghost” and that he’s an artist, there is still so much to explain. Why the rabbit mask? A reference to “Alice in Wonderland?” A reference to “Watership Down?” Or is it just a creepy-looking mask?

I’d bet money that it’s just a creepy-looking mask. The face has just enough signifiers of “rabbit-ness” that our brain sort of goes to the index card “rabbit.” However, it’s so unlike a rabbit that our brain kind of breaks. Kubrick did the same thing in The Shining with a bear-like mask. It’s one of the most disturbing images in cinema. Replace “bear” with “rabbit” and you have Frank.

Frank is linked to Donnie in a very important way. Donnie considers becoming an artist and Frank is becoming an artist. We don’t know if he’s in art school or if he’s teaching himself, but look at all of his drawings and compare them to the drawings made by Donnie. They look similar, as if they were made by the same person. Out-of-Universe, they were made by the exact same person: Richard Kelly. Just like Donnie is a dark sixteen-year-old that Kelly did not become, Frank is the artsy twenty-one-year-old that Kelly did become.

This tracks with the theme of certain characters representing Richard Kelly at different ages in the real world, and how he imagined himself at different ages. If David is Kelly before he did not become Donnie Darko, then Frank is Kelly after he did not become Donnie Darko.

Donnie says that he stopped vandalizing houses in the sixth grade, when he would be eleven, and that, because of his criminal record, he cannot drive until he is twenty-one. This means that there is continuity between David and Frank, who is often driving his Trans-Am at age twenty-one.

Now we can understand why Frank seems to be on the fringes of the story. We’re in the Tangent Universe where Kelly is replaced by Donnie Darko. 

Rose Darko: [I]t would be nice to look at you some time . . . and see my son. I don't recognize this person today.

Donnie Darko doesn’t go on to be an artist. He might not even be alive at age twenty-one. So, Frank can’t be in the story.

When Donnie enters the story, Frank drives off in his Trans-Am. After Donnie is dead, we can see Frank again. When Frank attempts to enter the story while Donnie is still in it, well, all the worse for Frank.

Much of the movie is “God” putting the pieces on the board—putting Gretchen and Grandma Death and Rose Darko in the exact right position, so a character who does not belong on the board has to be removed. This is why Donnie murders Frank. It’s not an act of malice, it’s an act of logic. Frank cannot be there. Once Frank is dead, the image of Frank, with and without the mask, is kind of “up for grabs.” God can use it as the image he will project into the past. Kelly at age 24 is telling Kelly at age 16 to become this thing that was Kelly at age 21.

So, now we understand what a Manipulated Dead is. But how is Gretchen also a Manipulated Dead? If Frank is cleared from the board because he doesn’t belong there, then what about Gretchen? Sixteen-year-old Kelly may have had his first girlfriend, but does the transgressive Donnie Darko get a girlfriend? Maybe, but he doesn’t get a real girlfriend. Gretchen doesn’t love Donnie, she loves Donnie in contrast to the terrible people in her life.

She walks with Donnie to escape the harassment of Seth and Ricky. She kisses Donnie in reaction to more abuse from Seth and Ricky. She has sex with Donnie because her mother abandoned her in reaction to her homicidally abusive dad. This isn’t love, but Jena Malone plays the part like a girl in love, because that’s what Donnie would expect. But Donnie cannot be loved.

A woman who genuinely loves the transgressive Donnie Darko is just as unreal as a self-realized twenty-one-year-old Donnie Darko, so she has to be removed from the board. I know that this seems like a trivial reason for two brutal deaths to happen, but if you view all the extreme events as metaphorical, it makes sense. These are the Manipulated Dead.

Chapter 8 - What is the Timeline of events (For Real)?

We built a detailed timeline that took into account the logic of time travel, but now that we understand the symbolism of Donnie Darko, we can ignore all the science-fiction and fantasy and understand Donnie Darko as a movie about a true story.

1:    Richard Kelly is eleven years old. The “David” character is the mask this personality wears. Kelly fantasizes about being a violent and transgressive teenager.

2:    This fantasy casts Kelly as “Donnie Darko” just as a nerdy kid might have a separate superhero persona. Initially, this story is as optimistic as a superhero story with Donnie fighting the bad guys, but it ends with Donnie arrested and dozens dead including his mother and younger sister. The bizarre circumstances of his mother’s death can now be understood. An immature mind was imagining a bad outcome and “mother dying” was the go-to. The overly complicated sci-fi story of the mother being on the plane is merely an outgrowth of this instinct.

3:    11-year-old Richard Kelly rejects this fantasy and “kills” Donnie Darko.

4:    Back in the present, the retroactive death of Donnie takes the form of a jet engine from the future “smoosh[ing]” Donnie.

5:    Richard Kelly at age 16 lives a quiet life of despair as a meek, obedient teenager.

6:    At age 21, Kelly is an art school rebel. This persona wears the mask of “Frank.” However, Frank also needs to be obscured in this bananas story, so he wears a literal mask.

7:    At age 24, Kelly regrets being a meek, obedient teenager and re-considers his decision to not become a dark teenager. This means recalling his earlier fantasy.

8:    In order for Donnie to live, “God” acting through “Frank,” gets Donnie to exit the house before the jet engine hits. This represents Kelly re-imagining his fantasy life. However, he immediately regrets it. Steps 8A-8L are the clumsy moments of “Divine Intervention.” This is Kelly getting his fantasy to perfectly align with the original Donnie Darko fantasy, otherwise Kelly will have to accept that he made bad decision and the regret would be unbearable. Arranging for his mother (and not Mrs. Farmer) to die might seem like a pointless move, but that’s the “story” and he’s sticking to it.

9:    After a second loop through time, the jet engine kills Donnie Darko and Kelly remembers the life he led in reality (the Primary Universe) and not a fantasy (the Tangent Universe), therefore, Kelly has avoided a psychotic break with reality.

10:    Kelly is 24, but this time, he has the wisdom he did not have when he was 11, 16 or 21. He turns this knowledge into the screenplay Donnie Darko.

I could have gotten some of the details wrong, but there is no other way to make this story make sense. We have a combination of detailed events from Kelly’s life, things he wished had happened, things that he used to wish would happen, fantasy, and it’s all jumbled up chronologically. This describes memories as we experience them. This is a real depiction of the unreal.

Chapter 9 - What’s up with ‘Sparkle Motion,’ and why is Drew Barrymore in this movie?

The most prominent theme of Donnie Darko is the young being hurt by their elders. Jim Cunningham is a child rapist. The school indoctrinates rather than educates. No one protects the bullied from the bullies. Donnie is transgressive against this culture.

There is another example of exploitation that is kind of lost in the shuffle. The dance troupe “Sparkle Motion” is supposed to be the victims of exploitation. 

Ms. Farmer: Now girls . . . I want you to concentrate. Failure is not an option. And Bethany . . . if you feel the need to vomit up there. Just swallow it.

Beth: OK, Mom.

They make the trip to Los Angeles to be on “Star Search.” This is supposed to be tragic for the girls—literally young girls entertaining grown men with dance moves.

If you think that I’ve been too fawning over Richard Kelly, I am happy to point out his failures. Sparkle Motion doesn’t come off as victims of exploitation because they’re just too cute. Even the most jaded Donnie Darko fan is singing along with Duran Duran’s “Notorious.” When we first see them in the famous Monday morning montage, they seem cool, not victimized. Oops.

I bring this up to point out that Drew Barrymore’s casting is a bit of meta-casting. Barrymore was terribly exploited as a child actor, and it’s actually quite inspiring that she’s moved beyond it to do some good work. Her character, Ms. Pomeroy, is disgusted by Sparkle Motion. Ms. Pomeroy gets it. At the talent show, everyone is laughing and smiling except for Ms. Pomeroy.

Drew Barrymore’s early involvement with the film is the reason it got made.10 She has an executive producer credit. This is usually a vanity credit, but I think that Barrymore earned it. She was obviously attracted to the themes of exploitation and, as one of the good teachers, her character is heroic.

But the film seems to have done a 180 and presented Sparkle Motion unironically. Why? I don’t know, but I can forgive Richard Kelly if he lost control of five young actresses who wanted to play adorable kids. One of the actresses is named “Jazzie” for crying out loud.

The reason I bring it up is to put the flight to Los Angeles into context. This wasn’t a fun trip that ended in tragedy, it was always supposed to be tragic. The girls were being sent by one groomer to a city of groomers. 

Remember, they came back to Virginia, but they were supposed to go right back to L.A. to compete again, and likely pursue a career in show business and end up abused and addicted like Drew Barrymore.

However, the plane is destroyed by God, like a Sodom in the sky. Is Kelly saying that Rose, Samantha or anyone deserved punishment? No, but bad things happen when people do bad things. 

In the Primary Universe, reality, they go to Hollywood with Ms. Farmer instead of Rose Darko. How does that affect the outcome? Would Ms. Farmer make their situation even worse? Would Samantha go to L.A. if she’s still mourning her brother? We don’t know, but, whether Donnie lives or dies, the exploitation will continue.