“Donnie Darko” is a movie with an interesting history. It initially struggled to make its budget back at the box-office. Films involving plane crashes were not exactly wanted in 2001. However, the film gained popularity after its release on home video.

People started to get obsessive about it, trying to figure out what it all meant. There were websites dedicated to solving the movie’s mysteries. Using the film’s official website as well as special features on the DVD, one could start to piece things together. A Director’s Cut was released where some of the plot elements were explained in greater detail. Have you ever heard of another movie so hard to understand that you need websites and a new edit of the movie just to have a vague idea of what the heck happened in it?

“Donnie Darko” gained a reputation for being some sort of profound masterpiece with its ambiguous and non-linear narrative. People liked that it was so open to interpretation. However, the film has started receiving some criticism. The picture has been analysed so many times with so many wildly different conclusions draw from it. Some have speculated that the whole thing might have been meaningless.

Concepts such as time travel and destiny are explored in the movie but it often appears as though there is no clear logic to any of it. A lot of the imagery feels unwarranted too.

Sometimes, you can look at something and find meaning even when that meaning was never originally there. “Donnie Darko” is certainly an intriguing film in the sense that it managed to engage so much of its audience. Even though I thought it was not remotely entertaining, I was fascinated by the cultural impact of it. Other films such as “The Shining” have left people wondering about what it meant but “Donnie Darko” did this in an era where use of the internet was becoming more mainstream so there was more interaction between audience members. I imagine people will continue to debate this movie.