Scary Bunny in “Donnie Darko”- Spoiler!

The cult classic “Donnie Darko” is smart, inventive, and provocative. Made on a shoestring budget, it stars Jake Gyllenhaal, as well as his sister Maggie who incidentally (or perhaps not) plays his sister in the film. If you’ve seen the film, you either love it or hate it. It’s a dark film, does not have a “happy ending”, and is rather strange. The director’s cut tries to explain things a bit better, but many think the movie is much better in its original version, as the ambiguity lends itself to the enjoyment of the film. It’s probably best to watch it twice before making a judgment, as the plot is rather complex.

Donnie is, more or less, a fairly normal kid struggling with borderline schizophrenia. His visions of a tall devilish bunny giving him apocalyptic warnings may be in his head, or may be real. This bunny did save him from a falling jet engine of mysterious origins as it crash lands in his bedroom. As the plot unfolds, the countdown to the end of the world gets closer and closer and the stakes get higher and higher. The destructive pranks that the devilish bunny tells him to complete only add to the mystery of what’s going on. Is this Donnie’s mental illness, or will the world really end on Halloween if he doesn’t break into his high school and flood it?

Donnie completes each task as he tries to live out his day to day life. Not knowing what’s going to happen, he hopes that his actions will help stop the world from ending. He’s probably motivated by the fact that he just got a girlfriend, Gretchen, and he doesn’t want to die a virgin. In any case, at the end of the film, he does all that is asked of him. As he completes his last task, time rewinds and Donnie finds himself in his room, moments before the fateful crash that the bunny had saved him from.

Donnie sacrifices himself, and the entire month of experiences that he had. Gretchen never met him. The world is safe, but at Donnie’s expense. When I saw the film for the first time, I wanted Donnie to run out of the room. I wanted him to live, to re-meet Gretchen and live his life. No such luck. It’s sad, but his death was necessary for the survival of the world. I just wish it could have been saved another way.