Donnie Darko Schizophrenia

Donnie Darko is a film that is portrayed in a manner that allows for multiple explanations to be potentially accurate. The film is masterfully shot and maintains an underlying tone of paranoia and disturbed images. At times it masquerades as a teen drama with light hearted humor before taking the plunge into a rabbit hole. Throughout the film Donnie is visited by an imaginary figure named Frank, who appears as a man in a rabbit suit. Donnie is the main character in this story and is a deeply troubled teen. Early in the film a girl named Gretchen transfers into a class with Donnie. They begin dating shortly after meeting one another. Frank is the voice that Donnie hears, and often advises him to do things that are destructive in nature. Donnie suffers from schizophrenia with symptoms of psychosis. Throughout the film he has full conversations with Frank the rabbit. Frank leads him to commit acts of vandalism. He also informs him when the world will end. These are

He attended regular meetings with a psychiatrist, and was prescribed medicine for his schizophrenia. Unfortunately for Donnie his antipsychotics were actually nothing but a placebo. If his condition had been simply psychosomatic the placebos would have been enough to return him to a natural state. If Donnie had received actual medicine he might have been able to see rationally and been spared from his untimely demise. In the final scenes of the movie Donnie sees what the future holds if he lives. What he sees is the worlds end, and the end of everyone he loves. He can only see one way to save them, and that way is by taking his own life. Since Frank allowed him to see the future he knew when the engine from the plane would fall on his room. However, this time instead of sleepwalking and falling asleep on a golf course he remains where he is. This in Donnie’s mind is his only way to protect those that he