Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001) utilizes time travel as a metaphysical framework to explore existential questions of death, meaning, and agency through the philosophical lenses of existentialism and compatibilism. Drawing primarily on the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Henry Frankfurt—supplemented by Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time and Bruce Isaacs’ analysis of cinematic temporality in the film—this essay argues that Donnie’s confrontation with death and the inevitable passage of time ultimately enable him to reorient his life with authenticity and moral responsibility, despite lacking alternative possibilities.
The film opens with Donnie waking up in the hills wearing his pajamas, returning home to find the words “Where is Donnie?” scrawled on the refrigerator—words he pointedly ignores (04:12). On a literal level, the phrase addresses his unexplained nightly absences; but on a deeper level it signals Donnie’s existential detachment: he is already absent from his own life. His casual hostility toward his family—calling his mother a “bitch” and insulting his sisters—introduces him as someone who is detached, apathetic, and isolated. This physical dislocation portrays that he literally feels out of place; further relevant considering that the words appear on a fridge in a kitchen—a clear domestic space of routine and stability. His mother’s unanswered question, “Where do you go at night?” portrays that Donnie’s dislocation has no specific purpose other than his rejection of conventional stability (06:42).
Donnie’s shift from apathy to existential awareness begins with his encounter with Frank, a grotesque rabbit figure who tells him the world will end in 28 days. This prophecy catalyzes a fundamental shift in Donnie’s behaviour, compelling him to engage in a search for meaning. The countdown, repeatedly emphasized in the film’s form, functions as a metaphysical clock—a temporal structure through which Donnie begins to orient his life in view of the inevitable passage of time. His existential reorientation and confrontation with death is initiated by his near-death experience involving the jet engine crashing into his room, which—unbeknownst to the viewer—initiates the collapse of the Tangent Universe (TU).
Dr. Thermon, Donnie’s therapist, says that Donnie’s symptoms—his aggression and his detachment from reality—“stem from his inability to cope with forces in the world that he perceived to be threatening”, implicitly the fear of death and his uncertainty of God’s existence (01:03:00). However, Donnie’s hallucinations are not merely symptoms of schizophrenia, as the therapist suggests; but manifestations of his existential anxiety. These hallucinations thus represent the metaphysical rupture he experiences in confronting his own mortality.
The film deliberately blurs the distinction between psychosis and prophetic hallucination. While some scenes appear clearly delusional, others (including his visions of “time tunnels”) suggest a deeper metaphysical truth encoded within his altered perceptions. This ambiguity is precisely what Bruce Isaacs identifies as central to Donnie Darko’s narrative form, asserting that the film deliberately resisting closure and forces viewers to oscillate between psychological, metaphysical, and supernatural interpretations (Isaacs 203). Isaacs asserts that the film’s “radical openness”, reinforced by its recursive structure and multiple iterations, emphasizes “the desire to lock the film into a final reading” which “imposes a limit” on interpretive possibilities (Isaacs 205). The film’s ontological and existential uncertainty thus parallels the fact that Donnie’s reality is open to multiple interpretations, reflecting the existentialist importance on subjective and personal meaning-making through the process of intentional action.
Frank’s influence over Donnie appears immediate and total: his first appearance is marked by a distorted voice commanding Donnie to “wake up,” accompanied by a close-up of Donnie’s dilated pupil—suggesting a psychological awakening or rupture (09:30). Frank’s instructions, though cryptic and destructive, are carefully causally positioned to lead to constructive outcomes, subtly preparing Donnie for eventual self-sacrifice. In his class discussion of Graham Greene’s The Destructors, Donnie says “Destruction is a form of creation,” (23:05). This ideology reflects Donnie’s and Frank’s implicit motive for the majority of the movie in flooding the school, burning down Jim Cunningham’s house, and finally his own death. His interpretation encapsulates the perspective that disorder, when properly directed, can serve a higher purpose, very much unlike his purposeless, yet still destructive, actions at the beginning of the film.
A key moment illustrating Donnie’s confrontation with authentic existential fear is his refusal to superficially comply with Kitty Farmer’s simplistic moral dualism, telling her to “forcibly insert the lifeline card into [her] anus,” (49:10). Kitty’s humorous yet ominous retort—“I pray your son doesn’t succumb to the path of fear”—ironically foreshadows Donnie’s profound existential choice: to succumb to the fear of death or allow it to radically transform into a meaningful existential anxiety. According to Kierkegaard, fear is rooted in circumstantial nuances while anxiety emerges internally from an individual’s confrontation with their own potentiality. Through the process of the film, Donnie gradually transforms his fear into existential anxiety, one that is bound to the very nature of being free and intentionally choosing to meet his fate (Kierkegaard, Anxiety 42).
Jim Cunningham’s “motivational” speech similarly foregrounds the theme of fear, beginning with the proclamation that people are “too afraid” to say good morning, which cuts to Donnie refusing to greet him (01:05:58). This reveals the depth of Donnie’s initial fear and alienation.
Cunningham ironically references “Frank” as an example of a boy whose life was “destroyed by fear, searching for love in all the wrong places”. The subsequent use of fast motion, where the footage is played back at a higher speed than it was recorded, diegetically reflects Donnie’s disassociation and extradiegetically implies the lack of significance of Cunningham’s presentation (as it is revealed to be pure hypocrisy in retrospective view of his predatory actions).
Donnie’s admission of his fear, saying that he is afraid but that Cunningham’s view of life is akin to following the “antichrist” (01:09:55), inherently signals that fear itself is not to be repressed, but rather an integral emotion that informs one’s life and how to conduct themselves in the face of an impending death. This aligns with the Kierkegaardian conception of despair, where he states that “for despair the most cherished and desirable place to live is the heart of happiness” (Kierkegaard, Fear 25). This asserts that not taking oneself to be in despair, or lacking awareness of it, is in itself a form of despair, as despair is fundamentally about self-deception. In engaging with this, the film critiques false courage, displaced fears, and an inauthentic view of life without consideration of death.
Donnie’s existential inquiry deepens during his discussions of faith, agnosticism, and isolation. When asked if the search for God is absurd, he responds, “It is if everyone dies alone,” admitting, “I don’t want to be alone,” (55:03). Donnie’s visceral moment of curling up and weeping exemplifies his authentic encounter with mortality (01:43:22). Here, Donnie directly engages with Kierkegaardian Angst—existential dread rooted in facing one’s isolated death (Kierkegaard, Anxiety).
This authentic existential encounter informs Donnie’s shifting conception of free will and determinism. Initially, Donnie questions the compatibility of free will and determinism through claiming that one couldn’t choose to defy fate despite being given possibilities if they were “travelling within God’s channel” (01:13:53). Moreover, the film hints at this uncertain sense of determinism through instances of recursive temporality, where the future shapes the past; for instance, Donnie picks up a marker from the fridge before knowing he must write down the countdown and sees Frank’s bloodied eye before he knows he will cause it. Grandma Death’s identity as Roberta Sparrow and the reason behind her obsessive mail-checking is kept from us until later, just like the significance of the jet engine scene as being the final scene of Donnie’s eventual death.
However, his actions seem to embrace the compatibilist perspective articulated by Henry Frankfurt. Frankfurt argues, counter to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), that moral responsibility arises from actions grounded in personal motives and values, not the availability of alternative options (Frankfurt 834). In Donnie’s case, even though his choices seem pre-scripted by time travel, determinism, and Frank’s intervention, he takes fundamental responsibility for his actions when he admits to his therapist that he feels regret (01:40:50). Frankfurt’s theory thus reframes Donnie’s fate not as coercion, but as self-authored necessity: His final act—remaining in bed to restore the PU—originates from a deeply personal ethical awakening. Donnie could not have acted otherwise, yet he remains responsible, because the act was his own. Frankfurt, like Donnie, maintains his uncertainty over determinism; however he fundamentally believes that the structure of responsibility doesn’t depend on whether the actions are predetermined by a “higher force”, but that the agent goes through with those actions as reflective of their own reasons, desires, and character (Frankfurt 834).
Donnie’s interpersonal connections are profoundly affected by his existentialist shift. He shares tender moments with his parents (01:28:34; 01:36:51), bonds with his sisters in small ways, shows affection to his teacher, and falls in love with Gretchen Ross. Gretchen emphasizes to him the importance of appreciating life’s beautiful moments, and her decision to kiss Donnie in a moment where she is upset asserts that beauty in life is not limited to the happy moments but requires actively taking action to make one’s own life beautiful (01:18:22). Dr. Thurman’s reflection—“If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule there would only be you and your memories, the choices you’ve made and the people you’ve touched” (01:42:50)—echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that meaning arises relationally, sustained by memory and shared experiences rather than abstract morality or reward. This portrays memory as not just personal, but collective, embedded in the affective response of others. While Donnie’s death erases the events from the TU, it leaves behind a residue in the form of a montage where characters awaken disturbed in the restored PU (02:03:40). This suggests that memory is not simply a recollection of the past, but an ontological engagement with time, capable of shaping the present. Donnie begins to live with intentionality because he knows that the moments he shares with others may be all that endure.
Heidegger’s conception of “authentic” critiques the traditional, linear conception of time as a mere sequence of “nows” or consecutive moments in which time is perceived as intrinsically external to the self (Heidegger 279). This reflects Donnie at the beginning—lost in the everyday-ness of time, merely passing from one event to the next without an intrinsic connection to past or future. By the end of the film, Donnie engages with Heidegger’s “authentic” time (Heidegger 288), where it is no longer something that unfolds externally or linearly; but rather, is an intrinsic aspect of his existence where the anticipation of future, and of inevitable death, informs the present. This is similar to Kierkegaard’s assertion that death only has significance as a thought within life—it gains its relevance not in its occurrence, but in its anticipation (Kierkegaard, Three Discourses 73–78).
Moreover, the film subtly reiterates the theme of sexuality and procreation as biological imperatives tied to continuity through time. Donnie openly admits to his persistent sexual fantasies, hallucinates a phallic life force, and engages in humorous yet telling conversations about Smurfette’s sexuality—all of which reflect his awareness of life’s instinctive drive toward survival and reproduction. However, this instinct is portrayed as fundamentally distinct from existential meaning-making.
In his English class, Donnie argues that humans should care more about the death of their own species than others, asserting that rabbits are merely “cute and horny,” lacking self-awareness in their overt preoccupation with procreation (01:33:18). He dismisses the significance of a rabbit’s death by saying there’s no point in mourning a creature that never feared death in the first place, subtly alluding to characters like Jim Cunningham. This reaffirms the Heideggerian Being-toward-death—the uniquely human awareness of mortality that opens the possibility of authentic existence. Donnie argues that only humans are capable of existential anxiety because only humans possess the consciousness and self-awareness required to dread and reflect upon mortality. Frank, however, is antithetical to this conventional sense of innocent and unaware animality, wherein he not only knows that he will die, but already exists after his death. As a “Manipulated Dead,” Frank subverts this characteristic cuteness of rabbits in his physically grotesque appearance, a costuming decision that symbolizes him as an existentially aware creature. This captures the postmortem awareness that transformatively alters the characteristically innocent rabbit. In this way, he forces Donnie to reckon with the very thing a rabbit cannot do—die in a meaningful way by making his life significant.
This scene is of further relevance when considering that Gretchen chimes in saying that rabbits are a product of the creator’s imagination, and that we care for them because the creator does (01:33:57). This theologically allegorizes: if the rabbit (or the human) matters only because a “creator” cares for it, then perhaps life possesses intrinsic value, even in the absence of understanding. However, if no one cares, the rabbit dies in vain and so do we. This portrays a shift in Donnie’s attitude oriented towards the search for meaning: if creation implies care, then Donnie’s suffering—and ultimately his death—are not meaningless. Donnie’s final act of self-sacrifice, when he is seen laughing in his bed as the engine crashes into his room, parallels the Kierkegaardian conception of leap of faith, where despite his uncertainty, Donnie submits to having faith in a higher order (Kierkegaard, Fear 70).
In this final sequence (02:01:45), Donnie’s laughter becomes a profound gesture of Nietzschian amor fati, inherently transformed from his absurdist smile at the beginning of the movie when he asks “why” the world is ending (11:58). Rather, his laughter at the end is a profound acknowledgement and even embracing of his own fate, an affirmation despite uncertainty and suffering. The fear of death, rather than paralyzing him, becomes the very ground upon which Donnie constructs meaning. In this, the film presents a compelling existential thesis: that fear of death is not to be denied or repressed, but embraced as an informing condition of authentic life. It is in embracing death, despite his persisting fear of it, that Donnie takes a Kierkegaardian leap of faith and transforms his fear into existential anxiety to make his life significant.
Had he never encountered Frank, or survived the jet engine by chance, Donnie may have remained an apathetic, disinterested, and purposeless teenager. It is precisely because of his confrontation with mortality and metaphysical uncertainty that Donnie takes a Kierkegaardian leap of faith: the irrational, voluntary embrace of meaning in the face of despair. It is not a solution to fear, but an act born through it, awakening him to the possibility of living authentically. As mentioned by Isaacs, this formally seems to ask the viewers to take a leap of faith with Donnie and embrace the uncertainties throughout the film. It is reflective of the ambiguities of life, and the importance of creating meaning in view of one’s inevitable death.
Through Donnie’s journey, the film suggests that meaning is neither inherent nor guaranteed, but actively constructed through our subjective interpretations, choices and actions, even when those choices appear predetermined. Ultimately, Donnie Darko leaves us with the understanding that confronting the inevitability of death is precisely what enables life to hold significance.
Works Cited
Frankfurt, Harry G. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.” The Journal of
Philosophy, vol. 66, no. 23, 1969, pp. 829–39. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2023833.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1962.
Isaacs, Bruce. “The Image of Time in Post-Classical Hollywood: Donnie Darko and Southland Tales.” Hollywood Puzzle Films, edited by Warren Buckland, Routledge, 2014, pp. 198–213.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. Translated by Alastair Hannay, Penguin Books, 1985.
Kierkegaard, Søren, 1813-1855. The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Kierkegaard, Søren. The Sickness unto Death. Translated by Alastair Hannay, Penguin Books, 1989.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions. Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton University Press, 1993.
