I'm thinkin' about my doorbell // When ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it?

So I really think I've now turned the corner on 'Donnie Darko'. Since I first saw it nearly one year ago, I have thought that it was remarkable, creative and complex (but not for the sake of being complex)...until the end (warning spoilers! ha) when Donnie 'goes to the happy hunting ground'. For me it wasn't a matter of optimism/pessimism or a desire to pull the film apart at some point to bring it down a notch or to just be "different" ("Trying to different is just the same as trying to be the same" a wise man once said.... oh hell it was Rajala), but it was just a simple question of why, in order to bring balance to time and to save those he loved, he had to place himself into that situation. It has always bothered me, I mean not that it would make for a more exciting ending, but it always seemed to me that he could go back after it all and just peace out of there for 4 weeks and come back and continue with life once again, and his lady would still be around (the argument of "they would've only worked together had they met exactly as they did" doesn't hold up for myself; if it is love, for me, it will find a way) and everything would be safe as milk. Well thank you very much Charisse for she called me the other night/morning and the subject came up out of noplace and she, as a result, sent me a link to a FAQ page. I've been going about this all wrong.

My major hang-up was that him having to die was "the only way, because it was his destiny", which I though wasn't right because of how he was seemingly able to control his own destiny. We were both right. According to the supplemental pages, the whole of the film actually occurs in a spontaneously created parallel universe, opened for 28 days, which will suck the primary universe that we know into a black hole, thus erasing history unless "the chosen one" is able to set it all straight when a vortex opens at the end of the 28 days, pulling the primary universe back to the origin of the tangent universe (Exhales). As it turns out, he does, according to this (The) Philosophy of Time Travel, have to bite the bullet. So really I think I was looking at it with a slightly wrong frame of mind, like watching 'The Shining' and waiting for the musical number; it seems like much more a sci-fi angst-drama now than existential/psychological. Less a debate on 'destiny vs. free will' and slightly more (theoretically) 'Back To the Future'; because really you can't say "Donnie had to die, he was a martyr and it shows just how destiny is inescapable", because they add fictional circumstances, without which the story would be implausible (one 28 day shot, otherwise time is erased; the 'ghost' of Frank guiding Donnie through, weeks before Donnie caps him). Which is fine, (It's just like 'Being John Malkovich' & 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', reality with a twist) I'm very glad that a.) I think I know where it's at (please scream at me like my ma if you think otherwise) and 2.) I feel an added appreciation for the film. I really thought in reading up, something would come unraveled or fall apart, but I like it probably 10% more now. 3 thumbs up.

Quick thought: Is it the greatest feeling ever when a lady calls you when you least expect it?