What’s a fuckass?
Zedd, 03/17/03
Have you seen Donnie Darko? If not, I think you should. It’s a little bizarre and creepy and parts of it don’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but hey, it’s certainly better than what you’re watching now. Anyway, if you haven’t seen it and think you might, you shouldn’t read any further because some of the stuff I say might just ruin the movie for you by giving stuff away. Go here instead and be completely blown away. I’m Donnie, btw. If you’ve seen it (or just don’t care), then go ahead and read on.
So what’s up with this movie? I like it and all, but the ending leaves a whole lot of questions unanswered. Like where exactly does Roberta Sparrow fit in? Who’s this Frank guy, anyway? How did Donnie fix things at the end? I’m sure that there are some others that I’ll think of later, so maybe I’ll address them too.
Roberta Sparrow… hmmm… Well, I guess she must have sent Frank back in time to torment Donnie, or maybe she meant to help Donnie, and Frank had other plans. One problem with this is Frank’s condition at the end of the movie. Getting shot in the eye would probably prevent a person from being able to go back in time to torment Donnie. I guess this is sci-fi, though, so Frank must have had supernatural healing powers and stuff. We still don’t know shit about Frank, however. He just appears at the end and rocks Donnie’s world. You’d think that he’d feel bad about killing Donnie’s girlfriend and just deal with his lost eye without messing with Donnie, but no, his motto seems to be "let’s fuck with the psycho."
There are also some other problems here. Ok. Frank kills Gretchen. Donnie shoots Frank. Frank goes back and messes with Donnie. Donnie kills himself to save the world. Uh-oh. Donnie doesn’t meet Gretchen. Frank doesn’t kill Gretchen. Donnie doesn’t shoot Frank. Frank doesn’t torment Donnie. Shit, Ground Control, we’ve got a problem. But wait, Frank was the one who saved Donnie in the first place. What is going on here!?!?!?
There’s another similar glitch. So Donnie’s mom and sister, presumably, get killed when the plane loses its engine while the world is ending. The engine falls into the wormhole and flattens Donnie’s room about a month earlier. Hmmm… So at the end of the movie, Donnie finds a way to be in the room, presumably to save Gretchen (and the rest of the world), even though he will never get the chance to meet her…how sweet of him. In that case, the end of the world doesn’t come, and the plane never crashes. And the engine never finds the wormhole, killing Donnie in his room. Crap…we’re really in a bind now.
It’s still up in the air how Donnie figured out how to get into his room and die when the engine crashes through his roof. I guess maybe he traveled back in time and died that way, but what will his family do when the slightly younger Donnie comes back from the golf course? Hmmm… I guess that isn’t how he did it.
Two ending notes: Parsley brought up that Ms. Sparrow must somehow know that Donnie wrote her a letter but never sent it. She keeps checking her mailbox in case it is delivered. And…*drum roll please*…GO DONNIE, you finally got laid!!! At least I assume that’s what happened at the Halloween party… Even if you do manage to kill yourself at an earlier point in the timeline, I think it still counts. Well, I guess I’ll leave the rest to be written by forum users everywhere. Hope you liked the movie.
The CNF Donnie Darko Symposium:
Part Two: The last temptation of Donnie Darko