Donnie Darko (2001)

Donnie Darko is a science fiction psychological thriller that captivates you and keeps you and leaves you wondering what will happen next. The film is very strong and explores some very dark themes such as mental health and mental illness such as schizophrenia which the main character Donnie Darko is diagnosed with and supposedly has to deal with. The film starts off with a shot of a forest which then pans to a road before moving up the road to find the main character Donnie Darko lying on the ground. This opening scene is very good in my opinion because it draws the audience in to this clearly different character and draws them in wondering how and why he got there and so interested finding out more about him. Donnie Darkos character is a confused 15/16 high schooler who suffers from mental health issues but is visited by a dead person from the future and discovers he can time travel. In the end Donnie makes a great sacrifice to die so that he can’t/ doesn’t set off a chain of events in which his girlfriend, mother and one of his sisters don’t die. The character who constantly visits Donnie is called frank and whenever we see Frank he is in a Halloween styled bunny costume. The reason for this is revealed just before the end of the film when it is revealed that Frank is someone Donnie killed in a tangent universe and becomes a Manipulated Dead. This basically means he can talk to Donnie during that time and guide him to his ultimate goal of saving the universe. Donnie is guided to his girlfriend Gretchen after Frank tells Donnie to flood the school which then leads to Donnie speaking to Gretchen and asking her out. This is not coincidence it is specifically set out like this to guide the living receiver to his destiny/ goal of saving the universe. Donnie must save the primary universe by fixing the tangent one stopping a black hole from developing The music in the film is very suspenseful and the use of Mad World at the end really suits the film Also a lot of the scenes are shot at night so it is sometimes hard to clearly see what is going on.