Summary
- Frank, the monstrous rabbit in "Donnie Darko," is actually Elizabeth Darko's boyfriend and has been wearing a rabbit suit to hide his true identity.
- Frank's purpose is to lead Donnie on a mission of time travel and parallel universes, influencing him to commit certain acts to save his own life and the parallel universe.
- Frank's role in Donnie's life is complex - he is both a mentor figure, saving Donnie from death, and ultimately loses control as Donnie sacrifices himself to save others.
The 2001 sci-fi film Donnie Darko is brimming with mysteries, and the best and biggest of them all is Frank, a monstrous and humanoid rabbit. Frank first appears in the film when Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Donnie sleepwalks outside his house and onto a golf course, led by a disembodied voice that ultimately leads to Frank. The rabbit, which appears tall, gray, and with a horrifyingly warped face, tells Donnie that the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. This obviously raises many questions, but first and foremost, who is Frank and what does he want?
After Donnie meets with Frank, the rest of the film falls into place. Namely, when Donnie returns home, he finds that a jet engine crashed into his house, but more specifically, into his room. If he had been there, he would have died. Soon after, Donnie begins attending school and starts a tentative relationship with the new girl. Meanwhile, his mood and behavior becomes erratic. Worse, he commits acts of vandalism while sleepwalking. He begins seeing things, including transparent lines that seem to predict where a person intends to go next. Donnie becomes interested in time travel as the end of the world nears.
James Duval Voices Frank In Donnie Darko
Though Donnie Darko is full of strange and shocking occurrences from start to finish, Frank is the lynchpin of it all. The actor who portrays Frank is James Duval. Duval began his acting career in 1993 and earned a name for himself with movies like 1996's Independence Day and 1999's Go. He is also known for being active in the independent film scene, and collaborating often with Gregg Araki, a director known for his part in the New Queer Cinema movement. Since Donnie Darko, Duval has worked very consistently, up until the present day. However, Frank has certainly remained one of his stand-out roles.
The role of Frank is an interesting one because audience members could easily forget that there is an actual human behind the rabbit. Though it is obvious that Frank isn't a real rabbit, and actually a human wearing a suit, Duval so embodies the rabbit costume that Frank seems like nothing more than a giant rabbit monster. In this way, James Duval excels in the role, because he never breaks Frank's facade. And, as a result, his performance made the character iconic. By using little movement and a creepy note to his voice, Duval became the epicenter of Donnie Darko's tense and chilling atmosphere.
Frank Was Elizabeth Darko's Boyfriend
One answer to Donnie Darko's Frank mystery is that Frank is Elizabeth Darko's boyfriend. Elizabeth, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is Donnie's older sister, with whom he has a fairly strained relationship. In the early scenes of the film, during Darko family dinner, Donnie and Elizabeth get into an argument wherein Elizabeth judges Donnie for his poor mental health and, in turn, Donnie accuses Elizabeth of living a boring, pedestrian life. Later, Elizabeth is seen sneaking back into the Darko house late at night, presumably returning from being with a boy, though the scene is quickly disrupted when the jet engine falls onto their house.
It becomes clear that Frank is Elizabeth's boyfriend at the climax of the film. Donnie, realizing the world is close to ending, takes Gretchen away, only to run into school bullies. Donnie gets into a fight with them, and in the midst of their assault, a car comes. It swerves and hits Gretchen, immediately killing her. When the driver exits the vehicle, it's Frank Anderson, Elizabeth's boyfriend, clearly a human wearing a rabbit suit, and not an otherworldly being. In this brief moment, it becomes clear that Frank was Elizabeth's boyfriend all along, and that his connection to Donnie begins right at this integral moment.
How Frank Became The Rabbit & Started Appearing To Donnie
The final piece to the Frank puzzle occurs right after he exits his car. Without his mask, it is clear that Frank is just a regular person. However, the following gruesome events happen anyway. Devastated by Gretchen's death, Donnie takes his father's gun and shoots Frank in the eye with it. Then, he takes Gretchen's body and travels to the ridge where the movie began. He watches as a plane holding his mother and sister gets sucked into a vortex, ripping off one of the plane engines. Donnie suddenly wakes up in bed, 28 days earlier, and smiles as the timeline rights itself, and he is crushed by the engine.
Ultimately, Donnie Darko's ending gives insight into Frank and his purpose. Although Frank died on Halloween night, he appears as a hallucination to Donnie 28 days before, at the start of the film. The reason he appears is that Frank is leading Donnie on a mission of time travel and parallel universes, further explored in a book within the movie entitled "The Philosophy of Time Travel." Essentially, Frank leads Donnie to the golf course at the movie's start to keep him from being killed by the jet engine. Then, he influences Donnie to commit certain acts to save his own life, and as a result, save the parallel universe.
The Real Meaning Of Frank The Rabbit In Donnie Darko
The meaning of Frank is somewhat abstract and complicated. At face value, Frank is something of a mentor character, despite his horrifying appearance. Frank saves Donnie and leads him to do things that would never have happened if the jet engine killed him. For example, Donnie never would have met Gretchen and never would have revealed Jim Cunningham's crimes. In terms of "The Philosophy of Time Travel," which appears in the Director's Cut DVD, Frank is a member of the Manipulated Dead, pushing Donnie to save the universe by surviving, and a result, having the jet engine fall at a totally different time.
Although Donnie does save the universe, he ultimately avoids Frank's good intentions. After watching the engine fall into the vortex, Donnie wakes up 28 days before, moments before the jet engine crashes into his room, and decides to stay where he is. Despite the fact that Frank showed Donnie what it would be like to survive, he chooses to die instead to save Gretchen. In this way, Frank's Donnie Darko role is an interesting one. He is both outside Donnie's life and incredibly close to it. And, despite his best efforts, he loses control of Donnie by the end as Donnie sacrifices himself so everyone around him could live.