Donnie Darko - Time Travel Approach

I was thinking of Jake Gyllenhaal and suddenly thought of how he has now became quite a hollywood icon from the humble beginning, although I only liked him during his humble beginnings. It all started when I stumbled across this beautiful movie of Donnie Darko. The actor in the movie, Donnie, who has got a rather unique (the word they use to describe weirdos) mind amazes me much alike to how my brain sometimes works.

I must have been watching this movie several times, as much as how many times I have seen Amelie. In fact, I was too absorbed by the movie that I took a subject on time travel during my university days and wrote a crap synopsis on the movie. So I dug up my old files and found this movie review on Donnie Darko, from the perspective of Time Travel. Bullshit Alert!

The plot

Donnie Darko is a beautiful movie about a young man named Donald Darko (known in the movie as Donnie) who is suffering from emotion instability and perhaps mental illness. Donnie has behavioral problems as indicated in the movie when he says “I once burnt down an empty house” in which he ended up in jail.

The movie starts with Donnie wakes up in the middle of a road which implies that he has sleepwalking problem. Donnie later meets Frank, his imaginary friend who; as the movie develops, forces him to do many things which Donnie wouldn’t be doing otherwise. Frank is portrayed as a giant rabbit (actually a person wearing a bunny costume). On October 2, 1998, Frank instructs Donnie to wake up from his sleep and walks onto a golf course, and escapes death at the same time.

Frank also mentions to him that the world is going to an end in approximately 28 days. Meanwhile, an aircraft engine drops into his bedroom at his parent house. The next day, Donnie wakes up and comes back to his house realizing that he has cheated death. Donnie meets Gretchen, a new girl in town who sits next to him (she was ordered to sit next to the cutest boy) in the English class. As the count nears 28 days, Donnie's condition worsens and he hallucinates even more.

Later that night, Frank makes Donnie flood the school by breaking the school pipeline with an axe. The following day, Donnie walks Gretchen home since the school is close. This is when Donnie finally has a conversation with Gretchen and they later end up as a couple. The outrage behavior doesn’t stop there. Donnie later burns down a motivational speaker’s house, Jim Cunningham after being told to do so by Frank. It was later discovered by the police that Jim has a collection of child pornographic material. Jonnie’s physical teacher, who is also responsible for Donnie’s younger sister’s dance performance decides to defend Jim.

Consequently, Donnie’s mother has to chaperone her daughter to California for the performance in which they board a plane. Donnie’s sister got accepted into Harvard and Donnie suggests that they hold a party to celebrate since their parents are away. It is known that Frank has dropped by in the party and gets drunk. Gretchen comes over to the party and spends time with Donnie.

Later, they head over to Grandma’s Death house with two of Donnie’s friends. To their surprise, they come across two school bullies who were searching the house possibly for treasure. During the struggle between Donnie, Gretchen and the two bullies, a car comes towards them. The bullies left them there, fearing that it might be the police coming after them. It turns out that Frank is actually in the car and he later runs the car over Gretchen after trying to avoid hitting Grandma Death. Donnie, who becomes utterly mad with the situation, shoots Frank in the eye.

The next day, Donnie drives his parent’s car towards a hill with Gretchen in the seat, unconscious. At the same time, Donnie’s mother who is on a plane with his younger sister hits the wormhole. The engine from the plane gets sucked into the wormhole. Donnie reappears back in time laughing in his room, where the engine hits and kills him. Due to this, Gretchen and Frank are alive back again. (now this starting to sound like a zombie movie)

Consistency in Time Travel

The engine that falls into Donnie’s bedroom actually comes from the future, travel back in time into Donnie’s current world. This is why in the movie, the media reports that they have no idea where the engine comes from, since, it hasn’t happened yet, the engine has not been ripped until sometime in the future, when Donnie’s mother and his sister are onboard on the plane. This was the only way how Donnie could have traveled back in time.

A wormhole that exists on October 2nd 1998 has created a time portal which enables the engine as well as Donnie to alter the past by traveling back in time. In Donnie’s current world, he later sees that his existence has created so much suffering in the world, eventually leading to the death of his girlfriend, Gretchen and Frank. He decides that by sacrificing his life, the world will be different; that Gretchen will live, and so does Frank. (I think I need my time portal too then!)

At the end of the movie it shows that everything is moving backwards, up until to a point where Donnie is back inside his room laughing on 2nd October 1998. This implies that Donnie has traveled back in time. Later, the movie portrays the success of changing the past by the death of Donnie which also means that very likely Gretchen and Frank will be alive. However, this has created a contradiction, since Donnie was supposed to be alive at the first timeline and now he is dead to save the lives of others.

The inconsistency continues since if Donnie would have died during the incident, then there would be no party celebration since the reason they could hold the party was because Donnie’s mother had to chaperone his sister because his gym teacher was going to defend Jim, the motivational speaker whose house was burnt by Donnie. Donnie would have not able to do this if he was dead. There will be no Frank, no party and no shooting. If we are to continue to view the plot from this perspective, we will find that the story does not make sense at all, if tackled from time travel perspective. Little that Donnie knows that one cannot change the past.

To reconstruct the time plot, it is assumed that the current world in the movie is actually a second timeline. We can assume that originally, Donnie had not died from the incident. It is transparent from the movie that Donnie has sleepwalking problem. It might be due to this fact that Donnie was safe during that night. The story continues exactly as it was in the movie (since one cannot change the past, everything should stay the same). In the end, Donnie decides to sacrifice himself but by doing so, he has altered the past, causing a causal loop. However, he will survive the incident in the end; somehow.

He might fail in his attempt to commit suicide, suffers minor injuries, gets healthy again, starts to know Gretchen, and after 28 days, decides to sacrifice himself again. This will explain why Donnie has images of Frank, since in the original timeline, he actually did kill Frank in his bunny costume, and has the memory of the event in his mind, but it has not yet happened in his current world. The story will end once the wormhole diminishes and there is no other way to travel back in time. In this case, Donnie is trapped in his own dark and problematic world, with no way of going back in time. (what a conclusion. sigh!)

I told you it was BULLSHIT!