So how are all the Manipulated manipulated?
The Manipulated do irrational or unexpected things with consequences that inevitably push Donnie toward his fate. Consider the film's climax, the deaths of Gretchen and Frank. It's fascinating to see all the choices by various Manipulated that get Donnie outside Grandma Death's house on that fateful night -- and cause him to be so devastated by the deaths of Frank and Gretchen that he is willing to destroy the universe in which he finds himself just to undo those deaths.
How does Donnie meet Gretchen? Well, on Gretchen's first day of school, Ms. Pomeroy behaves strangely, giving Gretchen that not-approved-by-the-Board-of-Ed directive to sit next to the boy she finds the cutest. And then Frank helps them become better acquainted by getting Donnie to break that water main. Remember? "I'm really glad school was flooded today," Donnie says, because otherwise, "you and I would have never had this conversation."
How does Donnie know to communicate with Roberta Sparrow? Dr. Monnitoff talks time travel with him and gives him a not-approved-by-the-Board-of-Ed book to read.
How does Donnie know to look in Grandma Death's cellar? Ms. Pomeroy's out-of-left-field invocation of the phrase "cellar door."
The two thugs' weird idea to rob Grandma Death sends Donnie and Gretchen into the road. Mrs. Sparrow -- who'd refused to answer the door when Donnie previously called on her -- is reading Donnie's letter when Frank's Trans Am swerves around her and runs over Gretchen.
Why does Donnie love Gretchen so much that he's willing to shoot Frank in retaliation, willing to erase the universe to bring her back to life? Well, because of their deep emotional connection, sure, but also because they just made love for the first time. And why do they make love? Gretchen's stepdad, we're led to believe, irrationally attacks Gretchen's mother, leading Gretchen tearfully to Donnie's door and into his arms.
And why is Frank there at all? Because he left a party where he could've been making out with Maggie Gyllenhaal in order to buy beer, even though the party already had a keg. The behavior of an 18-year-old guy doesn't get much more irrational than that.
What other irrational behavior do the Manipulated exhibit?
Well, Donnie gets driven to his misbehavior by Mrs. Farmer's moronic adherence to the cult of Swayze. Said misbehavior gets him suspended from after-school activities; that's why he can't attend the talent show and is instead free to torch Cunningham's house. Once Cunningham is exposed as a panderer, Mrs. Farmer can't go to L.A. with the Sparkle Motion girls, so Donnie's mom goes, so the house is devoid of parents, so the Gyllenhaals can throw a bitchin' party where Donnie gets laid. And since Donnie's mom had to go to L.A., she's on the plane when the engine comes off, and ... um ... actually, I still have no idea why she had to be on that particular plane. That makes no sense at all.
Oh, and of course, everyone thought Sam Raimi was crazy when he made "The Evil Dead," but he irrationally did it anyway, and that movie was Donnie's and Gretchen's only date.
Thanks, jackass. Who are the fat guy in the tracksuit and the mysterious woman with the clipboard?
He's one of the FAA employees we see near the beginning and end of the movie. Apparently the FAA is so freaked out by the jet engine weirdness that they've sent their tackiest agent to keep an eye on the Darko family.
She is a talent scout for Ed McMahon's "Star Search '88."
What does it mean that Donnie's medication is a placebo?
This scene, which appears in the director's cut, is another hint from Kelly that he doesn't think Donnie's crazy. Dr. Thurman doesn't fully understand what's going on, but like so many of the other characters, she recognizes that something momentous is in the air and that Donnie seems to be in the middle of it, whatever it is.
What's the story with "cellar door"?
Ms. Pomeroy's vague attribution of the quote to a "famous linguist" was, I assume, mandated by the legal department; it's hard to get a handle on who first claimed those two words to be the most beautiful in the English language. I've seen it attributed to Pound, Poe, Tolkien, Mencken and a Chinese student of Mencken's who knew no English.
What does that creepy thing Grandma Death whispers have to do with anything?
I think it's telling how scared Donnie seems when he discusses her notion that "every living creature on earth dies alone." As the Tangent Universe draws to a close, Kelly is careful to give Donnie moments of reconciliation with nearly everyone important to him: his mother (in a sweet scene up in his room), his father (in a director's cut scene in the backyard, one of the nicest additions to the new version) and Gretchen (during the Halloween party). A friend of mine pointed out that another way of interpreting Donnie's smile as he settles into bed, just before he gets engined, is that he is pleased about the circumstances of his onrushing death. He was afraid of dying alone, without a connection to God or anyone? Well, following "God's channel," he has known love for the first time and has been given a chance to sacrifice himself for the love of Gretchen and his family and everyone. He knows he is about to die, but he doesn't feel at all alone.
What's with those weird blobs leading out of everyone's stomachs?
They're a visual representation of the future, inspired, Kelly said, by watching John Madden operate the CBS Chalkboard Telestrator on NFL broadcasts. Included among Donnie's many superpowers is the power to see the future. Donnie and Dr. Monnitoff have a discussion in which Donnie asks whether this representation suggests there's no such thing as free will. Dr. Monnitoff says that just because you see your future doesn't mean you have to follow it, but Donnie seems to believe that the future blobs represent "God's channel."
The film comes down pretty firmly against the concept of free will, at least in Tangent Universes. But that leads to a daunting question...
Why all the rigmarole? If no one in this Tangent Universe has free will -- and if God or whoever can make them act irrationally and do whatever He wants -- why did this whole scheme to get the jet engine off the plane have to be so complicated? It seems like a stupid way to save the universe, in the sense that anything could have gone wrong at any step. Why couldn't Whoever was in charge just make Donnie sleepwalk into the hills on Oct. 30 and use his superpowers to knock the engine off the plane? In the whole scale of things, that doesn't seem more irrational than some of the other irrational things characters do throughout this movie.
That's the exact daunting question to which I referred. It all seems very baroque, doesn't it, reminiscent of the overcomplicated plans hatched by villains in potboilers since the beginning of time. (My wife asks: If Voldemort needs Harry's blood so bad, why do they have to rig the entire freaking Triwizard Tournament to get it? Why couldn't Fake Mad-Eye just, like, send Harry to the infirmary for a Magical Mumps blood test?)
There's no good answer to this question -- why does God or Whoever make saving the universe so complicated? -- other than the obvious one. If saving the universe was as easy as all that, what a boring movie that would make, right?
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