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I had always heard how great this movie Donnie Darko was. It’s one of those indy films that never did well at the box office, but attained a cult following once it was released on DVD. I thought why not, I might as well add it to my Netflix queue. As I started to watch the movie it appeared on the surface to be quite good. The acting was wonderful, especially Jake Gyllenhaal and Jenna Malone. The script was well written, with especially good dialog. One good example of the dialog is when told by Donnie that he’s made a new friend, Donnie’s shrink responds with, “Real or imaginary?” It kept on the edge of my seat, waiting for what was going to happen next. But I started getting a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t right.

The film starts with Donnie having weird ‘waking dream” type delusions. During one of these episodes, he walks out to the golf course in the middle of the night to talk with his imaginary friend “Frank” who is always wearing a giant bunny costume. He is awoken the next morning by avid golfers, only to return home to find his house has been hit by an airplane engine, which would have killed him had he been home.

I think it probably started during a scene when a movie Marquee was displayed. The two movies showing were The Evil Dead (One of my all time favorites) and The Last Temptation of Christ (not one of my all time favorites). The film takes place in 1988, which was the year temptation was released. But The Evil Dead was released in 1981. But that isn’t what was bothering me. It was Temptation…

At this point I’ll put in the spoiler warning. Read on only if you dare.

I didn’t really let it bother me much and continued too enjoy the movie. I was intrigued by the physics in the film. As Donnie starts to fall into insanity, he starts to become interested in time travel and alternate universes. So this picked my attention back up.

Near the end of the story, everyone dies. Well, everyone except Donnie. His girlfriend gets run over by the real Frank, who is basis for Donnie’s imaginary friend. After Donnie shoots Franks, he takes his girlfriend’s body home, steals a car and drives out to the woods with the body where he waits to be crashed into by the plane his mother and sister are on, the same plane that losses the engine that hits his house after traveling back in time.

At this point, we see the Donnie in his room, happy and sane just as the engine crashed though his room killing him. The whole movie with the exception of this scene takes place in a “tangent universe” where Donnie lives out a few more days of his life before coming back to our universe and dying. This is what the problem with the Last Temptation of Christ is. I remember not liking Donnie Darko the first time when it was called that. Or maybe it as called Jacob’s Ladder, I don’t remember.