Donnie Darko

"Donnie: "Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?" Frank: "Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?""

A cult Mind Screw film, set in October 1988, about a schizophrenic teenager called Donnie Darko who sees a demonic rabbit figure named "Frank" while sleepwalking. Frank tells him that the world will end in 28 days, just before a jet engine crashes into Donnie's bedroom. Donnie credits Frank with saving his life by causing him to sleepwalk out of the house, and begins to do Frank's bidding, while gradually trying to uncover the strange events around him which may or may not be related either to Time Travel, an Alternate Dimension, or Donnie's worsening Schizophrenia.

A director's cut version was constructed by the author Richard Kelly several years after the original release. It greatly alters the pacing of the movie by the addition of deleted scenes, new digital effects and soundtrack alterations. The author considers this version not a director's cut but rather an extended special edition, since the theatrical version was already his preferred cut. Fan opinions are somewhat divided as to which version is better.

Rumors of a sequel have been vehemently denied by fans for years.

This film includes examples of:
"Gretchen: What kind of name is 'Donnie Darko', anyways? It sounds like a superhero name."
 * Alliterative Name: Donnie Darko.
 * All Just a Dream
 * All There in the Manual: The book The Philosophy Of Time Travel, alluded to in the theatrical version and quoted briefly in the Directors Cut explains the plot (or at least the Director's interpretation of it) and removes all the ambiguity with a lot of hand-holding.
 * The Anti-Nihilist: Arguably, Donnie. His whole life seems to be one big, cruel cosmic joke. No matter what he does, he's apparently condemned to repeat the same loop over and over again...  Meanwhile, his school life is spent constantly at odds with crusading teachers and motivational speakers. Yet this doesn't stop him from enjoying things while they last, and in his final scene,   Donnie just... laughs.
 * Atomic F-Bomb: After Donnie's English teacher, she runs outside the school and screams "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK" at the top of her lungs.
 * Author Avatar: Richard Kelly describes the nameless kid who shows up at the end of the film as this.
 * Awesome McCoolname:

"Sean: We gotta find ourselves a Smurfette. Ronald: Smurfette? Sean: Yeah, not some tight-ass Middlesex chick, right? Like this cute little blonde that will get down and dirty with the guys. Like Smurfette does. Donnie: Smurfette doesn't fuck. Sean: That's bullshit. Smurfette fucks all the other Smurfs. Why do you think Papa Smurf made her? Because all the other Smurfs were getting too horny. Ronald: No, no, no, not Vanity. I heard he was a homosexual. Sean: Okay, then, you know what? She fucks them and Vanity watches. Okay? Ronald: What about Papa Smurf? I mean, he must get in on all the action. Sean: Yeah, what he does, he films the gang-bang, and he beats off to the tape. Donnie: [shouts] First of all, Papa Smurf didn't create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel's evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village. But the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, it just couldn't happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don't even have... reproductive organs under those little, white pants. It's just so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. You know, what's the point of living... if you don't have a dick? Ronald: [pause] Dammit, Donnie. Why you gotta get all smart on us?"
 * Axe Crazy: One of the more perfect examples of this trope, actually.
 * Big "Shut Up!": Poor old Cherita Chen yelling "CHUT UP" at Donnie after he tells her that.
 * Bittersweet Ending: If you think about it, the whole movie is this. Donnie would have died outright had Frank not spoken to him and gotten him out of bed: thus the entire rest of the movie. The whole purpose of the film seems to be allowing Donnie to come to terms with his premature death, and to realize that sad as it is, it's way better than the alternative.
 * Black and White Morality: The Life Line scene (see Crowning Moment of Awesome) has the teacher arguing this (Fear vs. Love), while Donnie asserts that the world revolves around Grey and Gray Morality.
 * Break the Motivational Speaker: Donnie undermines Cunningham's methods, attacks his very simplistic "fear vs. love" spectrum and eventually calls him "the fucking Antichrist". It turns out that.
 * Butterfly of Doom: Take your pills one night, doom the universe.
 * Caught with Your Pants Down: Donnie almost starts masturbating during a hypnotherapy session.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Donnie. He could also be interpreted as a Deconstruction, as his behavior has him sent to counseling and diagnosed with schizophrenia, as well as the isolation leading him to violent behavior in his youth and adolescence. However, There's a possibility that he's not even one of these at all...
 * Crap Saccharine World: The seemingly idyllic Stepford Suburbia slowly unravels over the course of the film. One of the arguments for starting the film without "The Killing Moon" is that it allows things to seem much more normal at first and gradually get twisted as the month goes on.
 * Deus Ex Machina: Lampshaded when Donnie murmurs this as Frank arrives to solve (sort of) everything.
 * Downer Ending: Ye Gods...
 * It's kind of a toss-up between this and a Bittersweet Ending.
 * Though it may be a Shaggy Frog Story, depending on whether you understand the foretelling to mean "", or to mean world or  world.
 * One interpretation makes it a legitimate Downer Ending, though not in the way it seems to be: . One nice perk of this interpretation is that you get to disregard S. Darko.
 * The Eighties:
 * Complete with a TV debate between George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis.
 * Word of God says that it was set in The Eighties because that's when Richard Kelly grew up and he wouldn't be able to write a coming of age story in the 2000's due to lack of frame of reference.
 * Faux Horror Film: This movie was marketed in every way as a straight horror film instead of the dream-like, supernatural mind-screwy coming of age high school movie it is. It's creepy, but never really horror.
 * Fired Teacher: Ms. Pomeroy.
 * The Fundamentalist: Ms. Kitty Farmer, the school's crusadingly Puritan teacher.
 * Jim Cunningham seems to be one at first, but then he's revealed to be merely a hypocrite
 * Funny Foreigner: Cherita Chen has an accent that doesn't exactly match her (presumably) Chinese heritage, and is bullied.
 * Gainax Ending: And beginning. And middle.
 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: Mrs. Farmer doesn't swear; when Donnie is sent to the principal's office after snapping at her, she claims that "he asked [her] to forcibly insert the lifeline exercise card into [her] anus!"
 * Hair-Raising Hare: Frank.
 * Heroic Sacrifice:
 * Innocent Swearing: "What's a fuckass?"
 * Karma Houdini:
 * . This is just invoking Death of the Author, however, as...
 * Word of God confirmed that he got caught on the day after Donnie would have . It also says that not long after his vague dream-recollections of the Tangent Universe.
 * Killer Rabbit: Not really, but close.
 * Mental Time Travel: Suggested in the epilogue.
 * Mind Screw: For your sanity, we recommend that you do not try too hard to make sense of the plot.
 * Portal to the Past:
 * Frank is capable of opening these.
 * Precision F-Strike: "What's a fuck-ass?" and "...I think you're the fucking Antichrist."
 * Psychotic Smirk: When Frank gives him orders, Donnie's expression changes to one of these.
 * Sanity Slippage: The whole movie is about this.
 * The Schizophrenia Conspiracy: Donnie's psychiatrist suggests that his paranoia is caused by his schizophrenia. To be fair, she brings up the hallucination of a giant talking bunny rabbit first to justify her diagnosis.
 * Seinfeldian Conversation: While Donnie and his friends are drunk...
 * Seinfeldian Conversation: While Donnie and his friends are drunk...

"Donnie: Then why don't you start taking the goddamn pills, (pause) bitch? Donnie's mom: Our son just called me a bitch. Donnie's dad: You're not a bitch. You're bitchin'... but you are not a bitch."
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In a particularly dark version of this, Donnie has to, as by not , Donnie has doomed the universe.
 * Small Reference Pools: Most of the music in the film is Nothing but Hits, and as soon as Time Travel is brought up, Donnie references the infamous DeLorean.
 * Stable Time Loop: One exists entirely inside the alternate universe:
 * There's No B in Movie:
 * Donnie and Gretchen go to see Evil Dead as a date movie (in a double feature with The Last Temptation Of Christ, oddly enough).
 * The director's first choice was C.H.U.D., but there was a problem with the rights. Nevertheless, Donnie still compares Mr. Cunningham to a chud in one scene.
 * Actually, the reference to "Last Temptation of Christ" makes sense, if you've seen the movie. First off, Donnie is essentially . Secondly, in Scorsese's film,
 * This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: Donnie calls his mom "bitch" in the subtlest and calmest way ever:


 * Timeline-Altering MacGuffin: The jet engine has caused a paradox by falling back in time which will destroy the universe unless it is dealt with.
 * What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?
 * What You Are in the Dark: