After Seventeen Years, Donnie Darko Still Holds up as the Best Halloween Movie Ever Made

Every creature on this Earth dies alone.

Loneliness, that is the concept that resonates throughout the story of a schizophrenic teenage boy bearing the name Donald Darko. Known as Donnie to his friends and family, he goes about his strange endeavors every day with a strong feeling of uncertainty and misdirection. These endeavors include many interesting activities, such as drinking with his friends, pissing off his sister or sleepwalking.

One day, plagued by his visions, Donnie stumbles sleepwalking out of his house to find a man dressed in a creepy rabbit costume. The man only tells Donnie one thing, a mysterious series of numbers, which, as he immediately finds out, foretells the exact time our world comes to an end, that also happens to fall on the Halloween's evening. That morning he wakes up on a lawn with marker writings on his hand and a jet engine falling from the skies crashing through his bedroom. Thanks to his latest night adventure, he has survived and believes that now he is tasked to save the world before it comes to its inevitable end.

source: movies.stackexchange.com

So, right off the bat we have a creepy antagonist, suspenseful plot and a mystery underlining the entire story. Frankly, it cannot get any better than that at the beginning, especially in the first fifteen minutes. However, the movie packs only more surprises from this point on.

Contrary to what the movie may appear to be, it is way far from the classic race-for-time formula other similar stories obey. Truth be told, it is baffling how little time is actually spent with the story concerning itself with the end of the world. Instead, the time is used to expand on the characters and the universe as whole. There is only a few events that directly connect with the end-of-the-world scenario. Much more time is devoted to showcasing the impact of those events on the unknowing residents of the friendly neighbourhood Donnie lives in and how he reacts knowing that the end draws ever closer.

Darko's life is set in the society of the late eighties, a society filled with fear of the future and downfall of what people back then might have called moral values. Decadence plagues his surroundings as people and places fall apart figuratively as well as literally. The desperation of the age is illustrated by various events and characters looming in the underbelly of the society, portrayed either by their heinous acts or blind obedience of rules and false values.

The tension of the age sees itself in a form of political affairs underlining family relationships in the Darko family. Presidential elections are happening and the american society is going crazy. Dinner debates concern the Bush vs Dukakis elections, setting the movie into the year of 1988. Certain political commentary can be seen coming from the creators as the oldest of the Darko daughters intends to vote for democrat Dukakis, which angers their father, who believes the republican candidate Bush to be the right choice.

source: politico.com

This topic is one of the first things brought up during the family dinner scene, one of the first scenes in the movie and the very first in which we can see the members of the family together. There is an obvious message portrayed through the generation gap, but in the context of the scene, the exposition still feels natural and is not blown out of proportion to artificially create tension between the characters.

Sadly, it is not further expanded upon how the elections go through in this universe, or how they influence other daily endeavors of the characters. The debate, which takes place near the beginning of the movie only helps with sketching out the characters we will be seeing for the next two hours. It would be easy to make the father and daughter relationship break down because of the difference of opinions, but their relationship remains positive throughout the story and remains realistic. The movie does a similar thing throughout its entire screentime, where it introduces minor traits that don't really influence the story in any way, but help in shaping out the people and make them feel much more human.

However, politics are not the only thing discussed during the Darko's family dinner. What the audience also finds out for the first time, except for the current socio-political situation, is the fact, that Donnie has certain health issues that will shape the story in an unexpected way. These come in a form of schizophrenia, "emotional issues" as said by Donnie himself later in the movie, and a possibility of autism. Of course, there is no reason to alienate him from the society or treat his character differently just because of these ailments, some events associated with them, however, become key elements of the story.

Most important of these elements are definitely the visits to his therapist, Ms. Thurman (Katharine Ross). Here, we can see interviews in which he confesses to his problems and his point of view on the situation. Further down the line, hypnosis reveals additional information about him that expands his character. We can also see the way Donnie behaves when he feels comfortable an get a deeper look into his deepest feelings. There is also a very important key moment towards the end of the movie that comes as one of the first great twists it has to offer.

There is also a theme of literature resonating throughout the story, as well as references to some great literary pieces. In particular, these pieces are The Destructors, a short story by Graham Greene, and the book Watership Down by Richard Adams.

The former tells a story of  a group of pubescent boys, who decide to ruin an old man's house. As juvenile as the premise might seem, the opposite is true. There is no motivation for the heinous act, save from the sheer lust for destruction. As is pointed out even in the movie, the boys find a stash of money, but burn it all, just for the sake of destruction. Donnie draws a certain moral from this, which later reflects on his actions that are supposed to push the end of the world away, but at first appear as a psychotic episode, especially considering they follow after him taking pills for his bad mental state.

Destruction is a form of creation.

The latter is well-known deceptive story about a small group of rabbits trying to find a new home after their former colony was destroyed. Though appearing cute and fairy-tale-like, the story takes a lot of dark turns that make it obvious it was not intended for the younger audiences. It didn't actually appear in the original movie, but the director's cut contains a scene which includes a discussion about the imminence of death and death in general. This tightly ties in with the story of  "Grandma Death", a dementia-ridden elderly lady living on the outskirts of the town, who helps Donnie on his journey. It also the main reason for a certain character's destiny and said to have been an inspiration for Frank's bunny costume.

source: dazeddigital.com

But the decadence goes well beyond third-party literature. It writhes through Donnie's surroundings and infects the characters and their behaviour. Not to be misleading, there is no supernatural presence influencing them, it is just that their are faulty, as people tend to be. We cannot attribute underage drinking to an extraterrestrial force, neither can blind obedience and cult of personality be attributed to forces from another world. They simply happen in the movie as they would in real life, without any particular force driving them. They show the problems of society that is falling apart piece by piece as a result of its own influence.

As an analogy for blind obedience, we can see a story of a motivational speaker Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze), who has created his own philosophy which he now claims to use to help people, who were "imprisoned by fear". On the other side there is Donnie's gym teacher, Ms. Farmer (Beth Grant), who has completely fallen a victim to his teachings and aims to bring it to the school's curriculum. Their story resonates throughout the movie with the same importance as the one put onto the main story-line. As the viewers eventually find out, every little story that may seem unimportant will end up playing a major role in the bigger picture.

And that is what makes the story feel so real, it is the people that Donnie encounters. Each and every person in the movie is more than just a character in it, they are people with feelings and own stories. They are not there to play a particular role or fall into a stereotype of family and friends. Rather, they live their own lives, that seem to only scarcely collide the one of the main character. It is almost haunting, how almost unnecessary Donnie seems to the story of his surroundings, but still has tremendous impact on them. Albeit indirectly, if it hadn't been for him, the world would have been a very different place.

Thus, the ending and final message of the book that accompanies the second half of the movie begin to make sense. The horror, that seemed conceptual at first, turns existential in a series of events that set impact the audience in a way no other movie ever will. The entire movie is a huge buildup to the ending, that will hit harder than any other movie ending can. The authenticity of the world takes its toll on the audience as the credits begin to roll and people leave their seat in a mix of tears and confusion.

I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.

As the final scene came closer and closer, the mysterious book was revealed page by page to the audience as they were finally able (or not) to put together all the strings and make their own conclusion. But everyone who has seen the movie will agree, that the conclusion one draws from the first viewing vastly differs from the one created by subsequent watches. Therefore, it is encouraged to watch the movie more than just once, mostly to get the full enjoyment from its cryptic and puzzling nature.