The Plot

It’s 1988, and the presidential election campaign is running. Donnie Darko lives in a small made up city called Middlesex, in Virginia. His family claims he has mental problems; he visits a psychiatrist and takes pills to alleviate his condition. At night he listens to a voice telling him to wake up. The voice belongs to Frank-a 6 foot tall rabbit-who tells him the world will end in 28 days 6 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds. At that moment a jet engine falls from the sky and smashes Donnie’s bedroom. No one ever finds out were the jet engine came from..

Frank starts telling Donnie to do things. Criminal things. At first he floods the school, so that the school has to close. This day Donnie makes himself a girlfriend, Gretchen Ross. This very girl had to move with her mother, because of her unstable stepfather.

Meanwhile, the self help-guru Jim Cunningham turns up at school with his fear and love-videos. Donnie does not like him. He dislikes his methods and his life philosophy. He starts arguing with Cunningham at the school assembly. When he finds Cunningham’s wallet while passing his house, Frank orders Donnie to burn down his house. Donnie burns it down while the others watch his sister performing with Sparkle Motion at the school concert.

We get to know his teachers, his friends, and one of the biggest bullies at school, Seth Devlin. We learn that Donnie likes writing, that he is a smart boy, and that he has annoying visions and dreams attached to his mission-to save the world from mass destruction. The only one who knows about his terrible visions, except from Gretchen, is his therapist, Dr. Thurman.

By the end of the film, all the resent occasions rewind themselves, and Donnie ends up in his bedroom that very night the jet engine smashes his bed room. He dies. Now, questions turn up and people ask themselves what really happened.