Donnie Darko is a cult classic for a reason. The interesting visuals, the crazy storyline, the unnerving feel of Frank the Rabbit. While all of these things make it great, the relatability of the film’s central theme of loneliness also makes it a stand out.
In today’s time, especially, this theme has become even more relevant among young Americans.
30% of Americans aged 18-34 reported being lonely every day or more than once a week. If you look over on places like YouTube, you’ll see video essays about how Gen Z is “the lonely generation,” with Gen Z lacking third places due to the lack of funds and time. On the flip side of the same coin, you’ll see videos of people explaining how they have no friends at [insert random age here], and don’t know how to break the cycle.
Considering younger generations such as Millennials and Gen Z spend a lot of their time on social media, this isn’t too shocking of a statement. In recent years, social media has been responsible for further isolating people, especially those who use it as a means of connecting with others. It presents a faux idea of connection rather than solving an issue.
Off the screen, young people are facing a cost-of-living crisis. More people are spending most of their time at work, looking for work, or juggling between side hustles to make ends meet. People don’t have the time or the funds to go out and meet new people, causing a trend of general loneliness amongst the younger generations.
The Death of Community
A big part of Donnie’s character is his fear of being alone, rather that be physically or spiritually. Throughout the film, Donnie expresses his difficulty accepting the idea, but never denies the feeling. Perhaps one of the most eye opening pieces of dialogue comes from a conversation between Donnie and his therapist:
Dr. Lilian Thurman: Do you feel alone right now?
Donnie: Oh, I don't know. I mean, I'd like to believe I'm not, but I just... I've just never seen any proof, so I... I just don't debate it anymore, you know? It's like I could spend my whole life debating it over and over again, weighing the pros and cons. And in the end, I still wouldn't have any proof. So I just... I just don't debate it anymore. It's absurd.
This theme only repeats itself throughout the film, over and over again, to hit the audience over the head. Yet despite this empty feeling Donnie has, his characters is presented as someone who wants more for himself.
When he first meets Gretchen, he explains that he’s interested in painting, writing, and other creative hobbies because he “wants to change things.” This isn’t an empty statement, as the whole premise of the film is Donnie literally “changing” things. From getting Jim Cunningham arrested to questioning Kitty Farmer’s teaching, Donnie’s character is shown to challenge the norm time and time again.
These same sentiments can be seen within Gen Z, who have outwardly expressed a want of better work-life balance. The traditional 9-5 jobs aren’t cutting it anymore, especially not when rent is rising faster than wages. People want to work and have a life outside of work, not feel as if they’re entire identity is attached to their job.
But it isn’t just the need for personal time, it’s also the desperate need of socialization. Yet where can one socialize if third places are being phased out? If you don’t have the funds, you can’t just hop on over to your local coffee shop or downtown to the hottest club. A night out on the town can cost you over $100 if you’re buying drinks, using ride shares, and paying cover charges. Hell, a cup of coffee can be up to $6 if you’re not tipping.
Before, young adults could afford these places and meet new people. Now, that’s more of a pipe dream. Third places are dying, and so are the special moments of bumping into someone.
The Fear of Being Seen
There are so many videos of young adults admitting that they don’t have any friends, feel like failures, and don’t know what to do to fix it. Go on YouTube and you’ll find the rabbit hole.
But why do so many young people feel this way?
A lot of it has to do with the fear of being seen, as social media has caused people to become more hyper aware of themselves in recent years. You’ll oftentimes hear people go, “How do I make friends without being awkward?”
Going up to someone and introducing yourself isn’t necessarily an awkward thing to do, but for many, such a simple social task weighs heavy. We can probably attribute some of this to the COVID-19 lockdowns, as anxiety disorders increased during isolation.
However, it would be silly not to mention the impact social media has made as well. People record strangers now, without their consent, and such a thing leaves others paranoid that they’ll be the next viral video. Many have said that club culture has died because of this phenomenon. Some people are scared to dance and let loose in fear of being recorded and made into a joke.
Really, people are scared of being themselves because they don’t want to be perceived as “cringe” or “weird.”
In Donnie Darko, we can see a similar premise. My first thoughts go back to Donnie introducing himself to Gretchen. He’s extremely awkward, proving his lack of social skills, but he’s also hyper aware of this.
The immediate “sorry”s are something I’ve seen with many people in Gen Z. “Sorry to bother you.” “Sorry, can I ask you something?” “Sorry, but this isn’t what I ordered.” There’s a weird need to apologize, even if it’s an inconvenience for us.
But it wasn’t just this dialogue in particular. It’s also Donnie and his friends, particularly when talking about the Smurfs. The scene is quite humorous, with the friends making sexual jokes about the franchise. But it isn’t until Donnie gets annoyed that he begins to pick apart their jokes and tells them that everything they said is stupid, especially because the Smurfs are asexual anyway.
The friends only have this to say: “Why do you have to get all smart on us?”
It’s a very simple scene that one would think should be overlooked as a comedy bit, and while the content is definitely bizarre, there’s plenty of people who have been in similar situations. To express themselves with friends only to be looked at funny or questioned. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, and perhaps another reason as to why the loneliness epidemic is further spreading.
Angst & Uncertainty
Of course, the whole point of the movie is to explore the period in which young people (typically teens) go through an “angst” phase.
For Donnie, it’s his fear of being alone and the responsibility of “saving the world” that drives this. As Rolling Stone puts it: “Donnie Darko offers a sci-fi dreamscape in which its hero, like so many of us, seems to be the only person who understands how truly fucked the world is.”
Now, that’s obviously a sarcastic exaggeration, but it’s meant to be. After all, Donnie Darko is a film about young people’s anxiety of the future. It’s meant to be a weird, artsy fever dream to represent what it feels like to worry about so many things at once. Will I have a family? Will I have kids? Will I die alone? The usual things that young people think about.
It’s this uncertainty that paralyzes many with the fear of the future, causing the unfortunate videos we see online of Gen Z expressing their thoughts on the matter.
“Pray your son doesn’t succumb to a path of fear,” Kitty Farmer says in the film. Perhaps a quote that’s extremely relatable for Gen Z, who have been met with what feels like a crumbling future. It’s the reason why Gen Z is so loud about work-life balance and the cost-of-living crisis. It’s also why Donnie Darko, a film that has always been an important “coming-of-age” film, is much more relevant now. To quote the Rolling Stone again:
By now, watching Donnie Darko is like a rite of passage for young people everywhere. It’s up there with discovering bands like Radiohead, or rappers like Odd Future, as formative adolescent experiences. It offers a vessel for a specific kind of teenage anxiety. For millennials, and more urgently for Gen Z, there’s a keen awareness that the world might end at a moment’s notice — that there’s something deeply unstable about the prevailing status quo. The generation born into a fraught promise of social mobility can find some element of the movie to graft their own feelings onto. “I’m grateful that it has connected with a younger generation,” Kelly says.
This all connects to the fragility of young people’s lives. Not knowing how the future will be is bad enough, but fear that the future will present nothing but failures is an entirely different ball game. It has made people think, “What’s the point?”
If the future is so uncertain, then why should they socialize? Why meet people only for everything to crumble anyway?
Is That It Then?
Donnie Darko ends with Donnie laying down and getting crushed by an airplane engine. Before he’s killed, he smiles.
Everyone else in the movie is spared of the awful things that happened during the film, and Donnie basically goes out sacrificing himself, getting over his fear of death and loneliness.
It’s a somewhat happy ending. Sorta.
But Donnie’s smile represents a sense of acceptance… and hope.
I don’t think the loneliness epidemic will last forever. Gen Z’s craving of socialization is human nature, and it’s hard for us to deny a need as basic as talking to one another. Loneliness is literally just as bad for you as smoking is, so it’s not exactly an option to deny it anyway.
People want to express themselves. People want to talk about their days. People want to laugh, dance, and have fun.
There’s been a big trend recently within Gen Z wanting change. People have been switching to “dumb phones,” ditching their smartphones for a simpler experience. The flip phones of the old provide the services they need, while the smartphones of the present distract them from what’s important.
Young people have also been quitting social media, tired of the narratives and ads being pushed onto them by big tech. Rather than relying on Twitter to seek validation and community, people are starting to look into local events. They’re exploring what they have rather than what social media tells them they don’t have.
I think there’s a lot of hope that things will change. It’ll just take a lot of work. I know that Grandma’s Death famous line is “Every creature on this earth dies alone,” but Donnie’s death proved the ability to overcome fear, even in the face of loneliness.
“I can only hope that the answers will come to me in my sleep. I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.”
The epidemic will end one day. Overcoming this loneliness just won’t be as intense as Donnie Darko.