Part I. Who are you, Donnie Darko? (The Beginning)

I'll begin at the beginning (if I can find one), so you might have some idea what the movie is about.

It is dawn. The adolescent boy wakes up next to his bike on a wet strip of road, and he looks out over the green mountains. He looks confused.. We are too.. Who is this kid and what is he doing here?

As he mounts the bicycle, we begin to realize who he is -- or so we think. He rides into the average suburb we know too well, enters an average house with a normal family- the energetic little sister, intellectual/rebellious big sister, clean-cut dad and protective, worried mother. A magnetic board on the fridge reads, "Where is Donnie?"

"What happened to my son? Where do you go at night?" Mom asks and asks. And just when we begin to get smug (We know! He spent the night on that mountain road!), we are suddenly flooded with more questions-- the mystery ensues as night falls again. The chilling voice awakens Donnie, "28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds. That is when the world will end." The voice belongs to a grotesque grey bunny that stands across the street on two legs. We learn the creature's name is Frank. Well, this is creepy.

All seems pretty well, though, when we see that Frank has apparently saved Donnie- saved him from a rogue jet engine that falls into his room and would have crushed him-- that is, if Frank had not woke him and forced him to sleepwalk to a nearby golf course that night.

It seems it's all meant to be: Donnie has been saved, how LUCKY he was not in his bedroom when that plane crashed. Now there is no need for further questioning. Except- where did the jet engine come from?

(SPOILER ALERT): It comes from the future, from a plane carrying his mother and little sister that incidentally enters a time portal. However, Donnie is able to erase a series of horrific events (including the plane crash itself) if he allows the jet engine to crush him when time comes full circle. Which he does.

As this post is mostly an introduction to Donnie Darko, get a feeling for this movie from this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR91Rj1ZN1M

It is the music video of the theme song and includes a video montage of the film. One comment on the video is "It's about learning to accept your fate." I wholeheartedly disagree: this dark thriller is a twisted coming of age story, but also a deeply existentialist film. For the movie traces Donnie's self-discovery up until his final, defining act: his self-sacrifice for his loved ones.

Donnie Darko explores our original question (the most important, existentialist one): Who is Donnie Darko and what will he choose to do?

Rosie