Donnie Darko

I had to watch and write a paper on Donnie Darko for my Abnormal Psychology class.

Donnie Darko

            The title character, Donnie Darko, portrayed by Jake Gyllenhall, is an intelligent but dark teenager. He is surrounded by cast of characters that range from amusing to deeply disturbed. He is being directed by a giant talking rabbit. After the rabbit named Frank tells him to leave his room in the middle of the night, a jet engine comes crashing through the roof and lands in his room. Since Frank the rabbit saved his life, Donnie feels that he must listen to what Frank says.

            Frank directs Donnie to do many destructive things that lead to positive results, such as catching a child pornographer. Unfortunately, Frank also tells Donnie about the end of the world happening in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. Little does Donnie realize that it’s just his world that will be ending. The series of events of the movie lead to the destruction of many of the people he cares about. His mother and sister die in a plane crash, his girlfriend is stabbed, and his favorite teacher is fired.

            But, there is hope! Because in the course of the movie he discovers the secret to time travel. Using a worm hole, he travels back in time so that he is killed by the jet engine. The idea being that without him none of the rest would have happened.

            Donnie has schizophrenia with visual and auditory hallucinations. I believe that the movie does a good job of portraying a teen spiraling out of control with this disorder. The movie was very dark, not only in tone but visually. I missed most of the visual symbolism of the movie as I was unable to actually see anything. In fact I’m just guessing on the girlfriend being stabbed just from what I heard as it was dark as pitch.

            I believe that Donnie has oppositional defiance disorder, as Donnie is very in your face with all authority figures. He is so defiant that he ends up of screaming at a teacher in front of the class. But, this is not the typical ranting that the media portrays with mental illness (any movie or TV show with a homeless person shows them screaming incoherently), this is a well thought out and concise attack on the teacher. This does a service to the mentally ill I believe, as it shows that they can be highly intelligent and educated.

            I think that this movie was made to be confusing and to make people question their long held beliefs of mental illness, authority, time travel, the American school system, and themselves.