Everything you were afraid to ask about "Donnie Darko"

Yeah, what's up with that bunny suit?

Donnie meets the real Frank -- not his Manipulated Dead specter -- for the first time on Halloween eve, with Frank in costume. But it's also an allusion to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" -- just as the White Rabbit leads Alice down the hole into her great adventure, so does Frank lead Donnie into his own. Rabbit imagery abounds in "Donnie Darko," from a VW Rabbit driving down the streets of Middlesex to stuffed bunnies to a photograph of toddler Maggie Gyllenhaal next to a kid in a rabbit suit to (in the director's cut) an extended subplot revolving around Richard Adams' rabbits-in-peril novel "Watership Down."

OK, I still don't get it. How exactly does Donnie deliver the jet engine back through time? I get that there's a time portal or whatever above his house, and the jet engine falls through it, but it seems like it just falls off his mom's plane for no reason.

I couldn't figure this out at all, but, thank God, Kelly explains it on the DVD commentary. In addition to his super strength and super future-sight and super sulking power, Donnie has the power of telekinesis. He rips the engine off the plane himself.

Oh. I didn't get that.

I don't know anyone who did.

Why does he do that?

Well, he's basically railroaded into it. Previous events -- his conversations with Dr. Monnitoff, his reading of Roberta Sparrow's book -- have made it clear to Donnie what is going on, and he pretty much knows what he is supposed to do. But he's spurred on most directly by the events of the previous evening. Once he has killed a person and seen his girlfriend die before his eyes, he feels he has no choice but to send time backward -- to telekinetically rip off the engine, send it through the time vortex, and fulfill his destiny as the Living Receiver. (Sparrow's book refers to this as an Ensurance Trap, a snare created by the Manipulated Dead -- in this case, Frank and Gretchen -- to make absolutely sure that the Chosen One does his job.) Donnie believes that if he does what he's supposed to, this Tangent Universe he's in will disappear and it will be as if the past 28 days never happened -- Gretchen and Frank will still be alive.

But doesn't he know that if he sends the jet engine back in time, and it lands on his house, but he's back there on Oct. 2 in a regular universe with no Frank calling him out of bed, he'll get squashed like a bug?

Impaled, actually, as seen in a gruesome deleted scene on the DVD. It's hard to tell whether he knows this or not. His hysterical laughter at the end of the movie suggests he knows something's up. Sparrow's book notes that many of the Manipulated will see the events of the Tangent Universe in their dreams. So we can assume that at midnight on Oct. 2 in the Primary Universe, Donnie Darko wakes up from an exceptionally detailed dream in which he developed superpowers, got lucky, burned down a pervert's house, and discussed the sexual habits of Smurfs with his friends. Whether he understands the dream is uncertain; I think he does but chooses, due to all he's seen and his worries about repeating the mistakes of the Tangent Universe, to stay in bed and take a jet engine right in the kisser.

Interestingly, Kelly suggests in the DVD commentary that the car horn we hear as Elizabeth comes in the door is Frank's -- that he's honking not as a message to Elizabeth, but as one to Donnie. Perhaps Frank at that second realizes everything that happened in the Tangent Universe, and knows what is about to happen, and attempts to wake Donnie up and get him out of bed before the sky falls?

Also interestingly, this means that once again an extremely complicated film can be basically explained as being a representation of the dream a troubled character has just before death.

People remember the Tangent Universe in dreams? Is that why we saw everyone looking sad in bed?

Yeah. And Jim Cunningham is crying because he realized what a total perv he is. According to the film's Web site, he shoots himself 10 days later. The Web site has all kinds of fun tidbits: The FAA never figures out where the engine came from. Roberta Sparrow finally dies in December 1988. And Dr. Monnitoff marries Ms. Pomeroy; when he dies under suspicious circumstances in 1999, she sends his copy of "The Philosophy of Time Travel" to the Library of Congress with a cryptic note. Check it out, but be warned it's one of those annoying mysterious Web sites that take a week to figure out; look here for a step-by-step walkthrough.

The sexual habits of Smurfs?

Yeah! Apparently Smurfs lack genitalia. According to the DVD commentary, the estate of Peyo, creator of the Smurfs, allowed Kelly to keep this very funny scene in the movie because Donnie's description of Smurf sexuality is perfectly accurate.

Next Page: The blobs? The "cellar door" thing? And why is it all so complicated?

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