Untitled

Powers:

Mind control: everyone is subtly guiding/helping donnie (stuff like cellar door or the teachers thinking about donnie in the teachers lounge)
Strength: axe through the bronze statue
Conjuration of Water main wouldnt spread that much water, sprinklers turn off just because hes walking by
Conjuration of fire show him spreading the gasoline, but not lighting the fire himself
He can see the future with the tendrils, and it gets more specific if he looks through them
Richard kelly came up with this idea after taking acid and seeing it happen to players in a football game




Donnie asks where gretchen is going not only because he is nervous but because she used the more traditional meaning of going together in confusion earlier in the conversation

Gretchen only likes donnie because hes better than the bad people in middlesex, and only ever lovingly interacts with him after a bad event

“What do i tell the other kids when i ask about you , tell them everythigns gonna be just fine,
Directly after he hears this he tells cherita something similar
Donnie also repeats something similar to clown that was in franks car

Samantha is running around the house in laps just as an additional thing to know these people are on set pathsgre

Frank saying his fathers name was frank and his father before him could be a hint that he is being reborn every time the universe loops too
Either that or its to connect that his dad was Frankie Feedler (donnies parents said he was doomed, and he might have gone through the same situation donnie went through)

28, 6, 42, and 12 all add up to the number 88 (bttf), the movie also takes place in 1988,
Donnie says “not until the 8th grade”
His dog died when he was 8
Jim cunninghams house was mentioned to burn down sometime after 8:00
When Donnie tells Gretchen he accidentally burned down a house, they are walking directly in front of Jim Cunningham's house. The Life Line Exercise Card that Donnie reads is about a girl finding a lost wallet. Later, Donnie finds Jim Cunningham's wallet on the sidewalk outside his mansion.


The soundtrack contains the song "The Killing Moon" by the band Echo and the Bunnymen. There's a polaroid in the background of one scenes where a young Donnie is dressed as a rabbit for Halloween.
In the bullies & gretchen waiting for the bus scene a Volkswagen Rabbit car passes by. 
There's a stuffed rabbit toy next to a chair in the Darko house

When elizabeth gets home she hears a car honking and she smiles, its heavily implied that Frank is her boyfriend so it may have been the original frank who caused Donnie darko to wake up in the first loop, this could also be one of the reasons hes laughing

Duality of donnie and elizabeth’s dates dying

Donnie darkos halloween costume is because of the illustration in the Philosophy of Time travel where you learn about the solar plexus


Donnie talks about how if someone cant have sex their life is meaningless, there are a lot of themes of sexual judgement in the movie and before donnie was chosen thats all he thought about (as shown in the first hypnosis scene). In the DC there is a scene where they watched watership down and donnie calls out that they shouldnt care about rabbits dying because rabbits are only cute and horny but they dont have any history or humanity, this shows his change in perspective. This also connects to donnie’s thoughts about everyone being manipulated and all travelling within gods channel.
Donnie’s criticism of bunnies not caring they are alive is his last argument before succumbing to his fate


Grandma Death seems to be involved in planning the whole setup where Frank is going to steer away from her standing in the middle of the road and run Gretchen

Its possible the original universe takes places in a tangent universe that grandma death failed to reset ( this is why her house is on the most important road on town)

"if the sky would open up, there would be no rules, just you and your memories". While this sounds like a re-assuring speech, she's basically threatening Donnie that he must save the universe or else he will be stuck in the loop forever.


The marker on the refrigerator white board is never replaced


Modern retelling of odin where he is reborn over and over and the power isnt really his, he is just someone accessing that power and in the pursuit of knowledge he sacrifices himself

All the characters get more flanderized, that’s why we see the family happy without Donnie at the end

Donnie doesn't want to die alone, even though he is afraid he will. Cherita is struggling with the same thing he is
Cherita brushes her hand against donnies shoulder when she goes up for the fear love thing
She is there almost every time Donnie has a significant public event
If Donnie is the sacrificial Jesus character, then Cherita takes the part of an angel. An angel is pure, has wisdom and is always near Jesus, but never interferes.
she is the only one that is close to smiling in the Mad World sequence at the end.
Cherita and Frank are polar opposites in their connection to Donnie. One represents love, the other fear.
In the same way gretchen is the anti of seth and donnies parents are the anti of donnies friends


The principals office scene is such a good use of selective framing where we dont see miss farmer till she rephrases what donnie said

He pretty much only uses the calender because of the countdown

the alternate universe is stuck in a 29 day loop of donnie sending the engine to the next loop instead of to the original universe so he can die, and with every loop Donnie/Frank get more powerful. This can only end if donnie dies only after he corrects the differences in the tangent universe so it doesnt disturb the main universe

The fat guy is one of the FAA guys, just to show that hes being watched because they know somethings up with the engine

When Donnie is burning down Jim Cunningham's house in the tangent universe, we see that there are two deer heads mounted on the wall, flanking the portrait of him that's hiding the entrance to the secret room. The camera lingers on them as they burn up in the fire.

Later in the movie, when Kitty Farmer wakes up in the primary universe on October 2, we see a painting of a pastoral scene with two deer by a waterfall behind her.

These two scenes together are telling us that Jim Cunningham is a predator, and naive people like Kitty Farmer are his prey.
Guarding the dungeon

Sounds only in the original:

Good ones:
Ladder guy saying “sorry” when he walks in front of tv donnie is watching

Donnie asking Gretchen to wake up



Bad ones
In the directors cut they changed it from people saying “GET HIM OUT OF THERE” and “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE” in a hick accent to the kids applauding donnie
Same thing with Cherita Chens Autumn Angel

The directors cut removes drew Barrymore’s badly performing her spiel about kids education lmao. It just goes straight from  him saying the methods are bad, to her asking what about her methods, to him saying “im sorry you have failed”
Criticisms: the school has people from every age in it seemingly and doesnt seperate classe. Also the kid in the tape is the same kid that donnie says to sign up for karate




“It’s people from the future. The director literally says this in the commentary. The idea is people from the future are looking back into the past and they end up causing an issue which leads to the jet engine being miss placed. So the people in the future need to manipulate the people around donnie so they can corr get their mistake. Does it make sense in the end still? No but that’s why the director cut looks more technical then supernatural like the original.”


The website lists events that happen after the events of the film:

The first thing we hear about is the death of Roberta Sparrow (Grandma Death) at the age of 101. She died on 25th December 1988 at her home.

Dr. Kenneth Monnitoff dies in a hit and run car accident on August 12, 1999. He was driving his Volvo station wagon down Old Gun Road when he was side-swiped and driven off the road by an oncoming driver, colliding with a tree.

Jim Cunningham was found dead on the fourteenth hole of the Country Club golf course on October12, 1988. He had apparently shot himself. Before he committed suicide he cleared out his entire mansion including his child porn dungeon. The police found his suicide note but nothing else... his dirty secret was never revealed. He actually shot himself on the same hole that Donnie wakes up on after his initial conversation with Frank. this was also the first point Donnie meets him.


Criticisms: the school has people from every age in it seemingly and doesnt seperate classe. Also the kid in the tape is the same kid that donnie says to sign up for karate/ brooms during the talent show

Interesting actor details:
When samantha is reading her story donnies friend throws a barely smoked cigarette to the ground and asks the other friend for another
Bully Seth 
Donnie Darko and the buillies can be seen laughing during the assembly
Jake gyllenhaal says he mimicked Richard kelly (director) for his performance
The actor for Joanie is making the same “sit next to me” motion as Donnie’s Friend in front of her
Noah Wyle decided his character was diabetic, and can be seen eating candy in the film
Mary McDonnell decided her character really liked wine