Donnie Darko Doesn't Make Any Sense *Spoilers*

[Drathnoxis]

So I've read some explanations of the plot online, the problem is that it still doesn't make any sense.

We know that for some unexplained reason a tangent universe was formed that is going to destroy everything by making a black hole(?) and the only way to save the whole thing is to send the unexplained jet engine back through a portal to the real universe. To accomplish this the universe, or god, or something sets up this Rube Goldberg series of events that lead to Donnie Darko using his magic powers to save the day.

The problem is that if the universe is capable of giving Darko magic powers and manipulating everyone and everything so that he is in the perfect position to use those powers, why did we even need Donnie in the first place? It's not like Donnie controls the flight schedules or anything, the jet engine could reasonably have popped off and flown into the portal without any intervention by our protagonist.

I'm not sure why this movie was so well received, because the mind screw elements were actually pretty sparse, the movie was quite dull, the plot completely breaks down upon scrutiny, and the movie ends up being a pretentious waste of time.

For discussion value, what did you think of the film? Was it a pretentious snore-fest, an intellectual masterpiece, or something in between.

 

[Fox12]

I wish that I could tell you that Donnie Darko actually made sense, and the critics left it alone. I wish I could tell you that, but Hollywood is not fairy tale world.

At first I thought I missed something. It had some cool scenes, and it felt like it should mean something. I mean, End of Eva confused me too, but after a few viewings it made perfect sense. Unfortunately Donnie Darko is, indeed, a pretentious film. It's clear that the director wanted to make an "art" film without actually understanding how art works. In fact, I would say it's one of the worst films I've ever seen.

Not because it's not entertaining. In a way it is. It's because it is actually impossible to understand the plot without reading a books worth of outside material. The film literally does not give enough information to understand the story. That is completely unacceptable, the film should be able to stand on its own merits without outside research. If the director can't weave essential plot points into the narrative, then he's a failed director.

Some works of art are complex, or challenging. They make their audience work to understand them. End of Eva, or any book by Faulkner, falls into this category. They can be confusing, but they make internal sense. Donnie Darko feels like it's trying to mimick that feeling, without understanding it. Those stories are difficult because their complex. Donnie Darko, on the other hand, feels like it's deliberately confusing for no reason. In reality, however, there is no truth or existential statement. Just garbled up nonsense.

 

[000Ronald]

The problem is that if the universe is capable of giving Darko magic powers and manipulating everyone and everything so that he is in the perfect position to use those powers, why did we even need Donnie in the first place? It's not like Donnie controls the flight schedules or anything, the jet engine could reasonably have popped off and flown into the portal without any intervention by our protagonist.

See, my first thought was that the universe was deliberately fucking with him. Physics or God or whatever it was singled out Donne Darko not just for death, but for an absolute mind-fuck before that death. Completely at random.

And that's what made the movie for me. It's not supposed to make sense. It's not supposed to be reasonable or sensible. It's about someone being subjected to the abject, unspeakable and incomprehensible cruelty of the universe, and not just persevering, but growing and becoming more of a person in the face of it.

The point of the movie is that to live is to suffer, and to suffer is to grow. Take it all in stride; at the end of the day, it's worth it. Or, at least that's what I took away from it.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, I've never actually seen it, so you can guess from there what my interest in it is, really. I suppose the answer to the conundrum is that the ungodly being involved is a bit of a ponce who wanted to impress people.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Questioning whether Donnie Darko makes sense or not doesn't make sense. The thing that I got out of it is the idea that in reality our universe, the space and time, is so messed up and so far beyond what our brain can comprehend that we can't really judge whether it makes sense or not. It just is.

 

[Loonyyy]

I was under the impression that Donnie was delusional, schizophrenic or psychotic, and that the realness of the events isn't of much importance.

 

[Naldan]

Apparently, it heavily depends on what version you've seen. The director's cut supposedly 'fixed' a lot.

I have only seen the normal version. Founf it was something in between. Regarding plot hole, with head canon you could explain this, and basically everything ever in any fictional universe, but yes, by itself and rationally it doesn't make any sense.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

Yeah... I was never really a fan of the film. I get what it was trying to do, but it just didn't do much for me. When it was over, I only thought was "Well, that was a movie I just watched." I honestly found most of it kinda pointless, like Martyrs. EDIT: Also, I found Donnie himself to be too much of a whiny prick (although that very well could've been the point.) It also threw me off that Seth Rogan was in the movie as one of the bullies.

 

[Olas]

You summed up my feelings on the film pretty perfectly. The film makes less and less sense the more I analyze it, and seems more and more hollow and pretentious. I'm sure it probably resonates with certain brooding angsty adolescents, but I can't stand it.

 

[CeeBod]

It made sense to me, but that's entirely because I didn't read anyone else's theories on it:

We know that for some unexplained reason a tangent universe was formed that is going to destroy everything by making a black hole(?) and the only way to save the whole thing is to send the unexplained jet engine back through a portal to the real universe. To accomplish this the universe, or god, or something sets up this Rube Goldberg series of events that lead to Donnie Darko using his magic powers to save the day.

I'd have been confused as hell if I'd read that after watching the film! To me it was pretty simple - Donnie Darko is killed by the falling jet engine right at the start of the film. The tangent universe or whatever you want to call it is only experienced by him. It gives him the chance to get a girlfriend, experience a bit of life, and ponder the mysteries of the universe whilst he's unknowingly just experiencing his own seperate universe on borrowed time. This is why the weirdness ramps up the longer it goes on - increasingly becoming more like a dream than reality.

So for me, the whole movie was just a time-loop, in which Frank performs the same role as is sometimes performed by Angels or whatever in other movies - granting Donnie the chance to cheat death for a while. That might not be canon, and I might have entirely mis-read what the writer and director were trying to do, but in that context it made sense to me, and I enjoyed the movie. )

 

[09philj]

It doesn't make total sense but, and here's the crux, the way it's constructed means that that is a point in it's favour. It could have been that the writer made it more that way because he wanted to comment on the way people are obsessed with finding meaning where there is none. It's supposed to be strange and confusing. I don't even think it's about anything or meant to have a deeper philosophical meaning; it's about teen angst, but manifested on screen as a choice of the hallucinations of a disturbed young man or time travelling ghosts, depending on interpretation. Donnie Darko is NOT Bioshock Infinite.

 

[drummond13]

As Ceebod pointed out, I think one of the issues you had was reading some ridiculous theories on what happened in the film. Donnie has no "magic powers" (though his changing perception of the world might make it seem like he does). There is no "black hole". There's nothing wrong with not liking the film (no film is universally enjoyed) but those plot summaries you read did you no favors. No wonder you were so confused.

 

[Terminal Blue]

snip

I think the entire movie can actually be explained with a single screenshot.

So the movie they go and see in the cinema is the Evil Dead, but the sign makes very sure that we can see that the Last Temptation of Christ is playing in this cinema. There's absolutely no reason why that film should be playing. The Evil Dead, sure, it's a classic cult horror film and the kind of thing which might get shown in a small independent theatre. The last Temptation of Christ is a critically acclaimed epic drama about the life of Jesus and his struggles with his own humanity in the face of being asked to sacrifice his own life. Why is it there next to a schlocky horror film?

Why does a universe which is capable of manipulating everything in favour of its own self-preservation require a random kid to sacrifice himself in order to avert the end of the world? Hey, this might seem crazy, but why does a supposedly omniscient God require a random dude to die on the cross in order to remove sin from mankind? There is no satisfying answer, right, and that's kind of worth thinking about in a world where millions of people believe the latter to be true.

Furthermore. I'm not sure what Donnie's magic powers are, other than the power to choose to be in the right place at the right time in order to be crushed to death by a falling jet engine.

 

[sXeth]

You could break the entire thing down to "All a dream" pretty easily, with Donnie having a dream just before he dies. His dream is simply a mish-mash of odd things and pieces of his life (His teacher raves on about Swayze's charatcer, he saw Gretchen riding her bike around and had a bit of a crush, he knew his sister had a boyfriend, they're reading The Destructors in class, which inspires his vandalism in the dream as wish fulfillment, etc).

So he hears the jet engine falling in his sleep, and subconsciously fabricates a dream of avoiding it, before finally waking up to the reality.

 

[EyeReaper]

I remember, we were really drunk a few months back, and we were watching just whatever dvd we could find. We watched Coraline, Wreck-it Ralph, and Donnie last, and holy shit we had cracked th code.we layed out timelines, cross-dated, Adam vomited on Cam's head (not relevant but funny), Everything all made sense. The next day, well, none of us could remember it. Who knows, maybe it's a movie that can be understood through the wisdom of Bacchus.

Spoiler: I dunno, King Crimson, how would you explain it?

 

[DefunctTheory]

I always assumed that the movie is essentially the delusions of a schizophrenic. As far as I'm concerned, its the only way any of it makes any sense, outside material, symbolism, or anything else be damned. It's about one crazy kid that may or may not be dead at the end.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I thought the film was overrated but in saying so I too never wunderstand the science part of the film other than he sacriface himself by going to bed knowing he will be crush by the jet engine for some reason.

Also that main themetune I HATE IT SO MUCH!!! Just like that other main tune used in 28 days later, that song was played every single time on the raido when I was doing my work expereince at High School! I loathe it so much!

 

[Vigormortis]

Donnie Darko is a pretentious "art" film with a nonsensical plot so nebulous as to allow anyone willing to put in the effort to derive any 'meaning' they wish. It's an avant garde art film in the truest sense. As in, it's weird-for-the-sake-of-weird pretending to be some philosophical statement about the beauty and cruelty of life.

Or it's a filmic manifestation of teen angst, filled with lots of "Wouldn't it be cool/weird if..." moments.

Take your pick. Either way, I liked the movie, but I'll be the first to tell you how dumb it is.

 

[remnant_phoenix]

First, watch the Director's Cut. It's a completely different movie.

Then, if you still feel that way, maybe the movie just isn't for you.

 

[runic knight]

Always thought it was a film about time travel as done by Final Destination. Basically, he avoids his fate by some odd quirk of the universe, and in order for the universe to right things, he needs to undo whatever he did that messed with it. Thought that was the point of the weird water noodle path things.

Been a while since I saw it, but could have sworn a lot of the movie was filled with little tidbits and hints at the nature of it being time travel related, and in the end, he "fixes" the timeline by sacrificing himself. Can't remember anything about the universe being destroyed by a black hole or whatever though.