A Beautifully Disturbing and Captivating Film; you need to watch this more than once.

Rating: 10/10 (18 October 2019)

In my original assumption of this film, I believed this to be a story about Donnie Darko, a teenage boy living in a suburban home with his family. We see him living his life with both social and mental problems in his day to day life.
As the movie progressed, I was pleasantly surprised by what began to unfold before me. When we are first are introduced to Frank; he tells how the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds. Later on that same morning, a plane turbine that seemingly appeared from nowhere crashes right onto Donnie's room!
We see many subjects come up during this film but the one that plays the main role in this film: Time Travel. The narrative of time travel, wormholes and other universes throughout it is inspiring.
A character that often appears is Frank. Frank is something known as the "Manipulated Dead", someone who has died in the Tangent Universe who contacts the "Living Receiver" through The Fourth Dimensional Construct. Frank sends Donnie on a series of "missions" that need to be done and if not could have led to different outcomes, which makes this movie a perfect example of the Butterfly Effect. If he didn't flood the school, Donnie wouldn't have met Gretchen or when he burned Jim Cunningham's house then it would probably have never been found that he runs a ring of child pornography.
When the movie came to its end everything came crashing down, much like the plane turbine and resulted in a moment of clarity. It was then we learned the answer to 'Why'? "Why didn't Donnie stay in bed in the Tangent Universe", is one such question. Donnie was taken out of bed Frank, the Manipulated Dead of this film. He needed to save Donnie and to show him the paths he needs to take to save the world, specifically the Primary Universe. Through dreams, visions, messages from the Fourth Dimension.
The amount of talent in the movie is top-notch, the performance of each actor helped bring this movie together, and how they each performed their roles is astonishing. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance as the intense, troubled character is one his best. And the use of both slow and fast motion in the film added another feature to this film that brought out the manipulation of time.
This is the type of movie that to understand it you need to both watch the Director's Cut and analyze just about everything in this film. If I had to watch this again, I would do it wholeheartedly then a dozen times after that. To have an understanding of the truth and meaning of something, such as this film, is truly incredible. I highly recommend this to those looking for an intense, beautiful experience from a unique movie. Donnie Darko is a must-see, by my account.