What's it about? Before tackling the reality-bending conundrum of Source Code, Jake Gyllenhaal faced a different kind of time loop puzzle in Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko. After being awakened by a man in a rabbit costume called Frank and avoiding death by the jet engine which crashes into his bedroom, troubled teen Donnie (Gyllenhaal) learns that the world will end in 28 days. How does it end? Donnie watches a vortex appearing over his house and the events from the previous 28 days unfold in reverse until Donnie is back in bed, laughing to himself just before the engine kills him. A character he will now never meet, Gretchen Moss (Jena Malone) waves at Donnie's mother, a look of confused familiarity on their faces. Why was it controversial? Audiences argued endlessly about what actually happened at the end of Donnie Darko - had he travelled back in time? Was he already dead? What was implied by the wave at the end of the film? The director's cut certainly made the ending less enigmatic, pointing to a time loop in which Donnie is caught up in a Tangent Universe and must send an Artifact (the jet engine) back to the Primary Universe in order to save it from destruction. Given that you need to wade through supplementary DVD material to get a basic grasp of the concept it's no wonder the theatrical cut proved to be controversial for many, and even now it remains open to interpretation.
