Not so friggin' complicated

Rating: 10/10 (7 October 2003)

Still a great movie. Here's my plot synopsis so *spoiler alert* here must be advertised:

Begins with Donnie's vision of the world ending. He wakes up on a golf course after having a conversation with an 'evil bunny rabbit'. Finds that his house has been ravaged by the jet engine of a plane that seems to not exist in this universe. He tries to figure out a series of events that he finds perplexing, all of which deal with his place in the universe, typical adolescent angst and such, but with the additional, compelling factors that can be summarized as: he communicates with a bunny that orders him to coordinate acts of vandalism and he needs to find out what course of events is leading him to perform these acts. Destiny? Free Will? Will the world end? If so, is he God, since he seems to control all aspects of the developing scenario?
He begins to be interested in time travel. It must be noted that this is only tangentially important. All "information" Donnie receives is part of his "life passing before his eyes". The Drew Barrymore character, Noah Wyle, the "Grandma Death" his sex fantasies...It's hallucination and madness as he dies. More on that later.
So, the film unfolds as we wind down to the end of the universe. Other reviewers have not noted how funny this movie is. Any teen high school movie I must watch and these scenes are above average. We are treated to a high school experience that, while not real, is ironic, tragic and disgusting and, thus, as real if not more real than the real thing. We see how the bunny rabbit--a costume worn by a trick or treater with his eye blown out--gets shot by Donnie on Halloween night for running over the love of his life, the one who just might save him for the inevitable solitary death that he fears. It is all tied together, incompletely of course, because it's a dream.
As the mother returns home from LA with Donnie's sister (in a parallel universe of course) the jet engine dislodges--killing the mother in, presumably a different movie--and falling on the Donnie Darko house, whose resident Donnie is NOT out on a golf course but in bed, dreaming revenge fantasies that he will never live to complete.
From here the movie should end, but it doesn't, showing us scenes of family members crying which are really not necessary.
Analysis is stupid. Watch it because at it's best it is funny as hell. And Donnie's character is well acted. The script is great. Don't be a fool and buy into the "it's confusing" racket.