People surrounding Donnie are helping him avoid apocalypse, even though they do not consciously know it. When solving the mysteries of Donnie Darko, it is clear how their actions matters to Donnie’s mission. Read what I have been writing about them and think about what part they play in Donnie Darko.
Donald “Donnie” Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal)
Donnie is a 16-year old boy living in Middlesex, Virginia. When we first meet him, he has a discussion with his family during dinner. Soon, people realize something is going on with Donnie; he has to take pills and he visits a therapist. The fact that Donnie does and says odd things, scares both his family and some of his friends. He is a smart and kind young man, who wants to be “a writer, or an artist, maybe both.”
What characterize Donnie are his intellect, his eccentricity and his stubbornness.
Eddie Darko (Holmes Osbourne)
Eddie Darko is Donnie’s father and he often fall asleep in front of the TV at night. His character is rather strange-he laughs when he should not and whenever he talks he says something funny or weird. In that way, Donnie and his father are much the same. They represent the childish, the odd, but also the intellectual.
Eddie does not like yelling at his son whenever he has done something wrong. When Rose and Eddie confronts at Principal Cole’s office, Eddie is having a hard time trying not to laugh when Mrs. Farmer repeats what Donnie told her in class.
Eddie is 44 years old.
Rose Darko (Mary McDonnell)
Rose Darko is the mother of Donnie Darko, and she is married to Eddie. Eddie and Rose is a couple who seem very different from each other-one of their fights ends with her joking about having a divorce. Rose seems very sensible and intelligent, but she has a hard time trying to accept that her son is “mentally unstable”.
Rose is 42 years old.
Elizabeth Darko (Maggie Gyllenhaal)
Elizabeth Darko is Donnie’s elder sister, and yet 19 years old. As the opposite of her father, she votes for Dukakis as the American president, and she challenges her family in several fields. Her political views are totally others than the rest of the family-while father Eddie is a pure republican, Elizabeth is a democrat.
She is taking a year off from school to work at the Yarn Barn. Meanwhile, she waits for her college-application to be accepted.
Samantha Darko (Daveigh Chase)
Samantha Darko is Donnie Darko’s 10 year-old-little sister. She is going to perform with the dance team Sparkle Motion at the school concert.
The immediate impression of Samantha is the precocious, gossiping little girl.
Frank (James Duval)
Frank is the rabbit who tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days 6 hours 12 minutes and 42 seconds. He looks kinda scary, wearing a bunny suit and being 6 foot tall. Frank is actually Elizabeth’s boy friend and we meet him several times during the film-without the bunny costume. At first we meet him when Donnie is cycling home at the beginning of the film. The red Trans Am that drives by is Frank’s car with Frank himself inside it. The second time we meet him he has just driven Elizabeth home from a night out. He honks the wheel-as a warning to Donnie-and drives off.
Afterwards, a rabbit called Frank tells Donnie what is happening with the world, and a jet engine falls into Donnie’s room..
Roberta Sparrow “Grandma Death” (Patience Cleveland)
Roberta Sparrow, to the local teenagers known as “Grandma Death” is a 101 old woman who is one of the Darko’s neighbours. She lives all by herself, and every day she looks in her mail box for a letter.
While Donnie and his father are out driving, they almost hit her with their car. When Donnie gets out of the car and goes over to her, she whispers in his ear: ”Every living creature dies alone.”
Donnie later gets to know that she used to teach science at his school, and that she wrote the book The philosophy of time travel. Before writing her book, she used to be a nun, but it is clear something happened to her. Probably she experienced visions and hallucinations about the horrible threats supposed to happen in the future. To avoid doom day, she may have written The philosophy of time travel. This book is one of the keys to understand the mysteries of the film.
Gretchen Ross (Jena Malone)
Gretchen Ross has been put in the wrong English class, and ends up in the same English class as Donnie. Karen Pomeroy tells her to sit next to the boy she thinks is the cutest. Guess where she ends up?
When school is flooded, she walks home with Donnie, and he asks if they shall go together. She accepts. Gretchen’s background seems complex: her mother and she had to run away from a mentally unstable stepfather that stabbed Gretchen’s mother in the heart.
Gretchen:”My mom had to get a restraining order against my step dad. He has emotional problems.”
Donnie:”Oh, I have those too. What kind does your step dad have?”
Gretchen:”He stabbed my mom four times in the chest.”
Donnie:”Oh.”
Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze)
Jim Cunningham is a self-help guru, most known for his videos dealing with fear. Fear and love are, according to him the deepest emotional feelings in the human being. Fear is what makes us take the wrong choices. The opposite of fear is love, and on the lifeline those two make each other’s contrasts. Cunningham states that drugs, alcohol and pre-marital sex are the wrong ways to happiness.
Towards the end of Donnie Darko, his attachment to a child porn ring is revealed-and he gets arrested. A few days after Donnie stabilises the primary universe, Cunningham commits suicide. The suicide is not a part of the film, but people can read about it on the Donnie Darko-web site or in the fictional book The Philosophy of time travel.
Jim Cunningham:”Son..do you see this? This is an anger prisoner. A text book example. Do you see the fear, people? This boy is scared to death of the truth. Son, it breaks my heart to say this, but I think you are a very troubled and confused young man. I believe you are searching for answers in all the wrong places..”
Donnie Darko:“You’re right actually. I am pretty. I’m.. I’m pretty troubled and I’m.. I’m pretty confused. But I..And I am afraid. Really, really afraid. Really afraid. But I think you’re the fucking antichrist.”
Prof. Kenneth Monnitoff (Noah Wyle)
Donnie’s science teacher, Professor Monnitoff gives him the book The philosophy of time travel. The book was written by Roberta Sparrow, whom to Donnie and the other kids are most known as Grandma Death. Mr. Monnitoff also tells Donnie about her past. Prof. Monnitoff is eager to discuss the mysterious dealing with time travel, but soon he has to end the conversation-because the methods used on the school in which he is teaching are based on Christian values.
We do not really get to know Prof. Monnitoff, because he does not say much. If I were to describe him, I would call him shy.
Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore)
Donnie’s English teacher. She is young, eager and creative. When she is fired from teaching Donnie’s class, she tells Donnie that the phrase cellar door is the most beautiful in the English language. She is original, and her methods are clearly modern and unconventional.
I would call her radical and rebellious. She is the only teacher that understands the young students in Middlesex.
Cherita Chen (Jolene Purdy)
Cherita Chen is being bullied at school. To avoid hearing the harassment, she is constantly wearing ear phones. If anyone comments on her behaviour, she covers her ears with her hands and shouts:”Shut up!”
Her secret love and passion for Donnie Darko is exposed by the end of the film.
Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant)
Mrs. Kitty farmer is Donnie’s gym teacher, and she is one of Jim Cunningham’s biggest fans. She adopts his way of thinking, and shows his fear and love-films to the rest of the class. In one of her classes, she asks Donnie to read a note dealing with a dilemma, and to put a cross beside either love or fear on the lifeline she has drawn on the blackboard. Donnie gets mad-he does not understand this way of thinking and tells her there are more feelings needing to be taking in to the perspective. After his opinion, life is more complicated. As to Mrs. Farmer, this is not acceptable. She is a strict, old-fashioned teacher that would like to exclude the Destructors by Graham Greene from the reading list.
Dr. Lilian Thurman (Katharine Ross)
Dr. Lilian Thurman is Donnie’s psychiatrist, and he often visits her to talk about his mental state. She is the only one who knows about frank and what frank has told Donnie. Dr. Thurman is sure that Donnie has a daylight hallucination, that he can see and hear things that are not authentic.
Donnie:”I made a new friend today.”
Dr. Lilian Thurman:”Real or imaginary?”
Donnie:”Imaginary.”
