
In the movie, this idea of alternative histories plays out in the twist at the end, when we’re not sure which version of reality we’re seeing - one in which Donnie is alive, or another in which he’s dead. In the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, “alternative histories” are real. While Donnie Darko almost gets the concept of alternate histories correct, it falls a bit short, which is of course forgivable.
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“The movie also creates the idea of a tangent universe, which to me implies a parallel universe that contacts ours at a single point in space-time.” “Donnie Darko, like many works of fiction, takes two ideas from physics about ‘parallel universes” and combines them,” Sean Bartz, a physicist at Macalester College in Minneapolis, tells Inverse. This idea actually does tap into real physics concepts, albeit with some creative freedom. Throughout the movie, Donnie tries to piece together information about wormholes and what the film calls “tangent universes.” It’s heavily implied that the jet engine - which almost kills Donnie in the beginning of the movie - somehow opened a wormhole to another universe. Part of the allure of Donnie Darko - besides the overwhelming angst and that “Mad World” cover - is its half-assed explanation of time-travel. We asked actual physicists to tell us what Donnie Darko was trying to accomplish, scientifically speaking. After 16 years, the plot still doesn’t make that much sense, but then again, neither did most of 2001 to 2009.
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Donnie spends the rest of the film trying to figure out how to travel back in time in order to undo some tragic events and may or may not have hallucinated. He’s then visited by a large man in a rabbit suit named “Frank,” who tells Donnie that the world - his, specifically - will end in 28 days. It was the Bush administration and a confusing time for everyone, especially us nascent teens trying to navigate hormones and Green Day.įrom what fans can mostly agree on, here’s the story: Donnie Darko is an angsty high school teen living in Middlesex, Virginia, who is almost killed when a jet engine randomly falls through the roof of his home. If you ask three people what Donnie Darko is about, you’ll probably get three very different responses. There’s an enduring appeal to the time-travel drama, despite the fact that the movies’ attempt at physics is seriously flawed, according to actual scientists.

Though the 2001 sci-fi flick bombed at the box office, it’s kept a steady cult following over the years. For those of us who had to navigate the innumerable errors of adolescence during the early-to-mid ‘00s, Donnie Darko dredges up a lot of feelings.
