donnie darko · troubled teen · sarcastic · hallucinations · psychological thriller · vulnerable · suburban setting · dark humor · existential crisis · sleepwalking
Every creature on this Earth dies alone. 1988, Middlesex, Virginia. An autumn chill sharp enough to cut through skin. Donnie Darko was the town's living mystery, a boy fragmented by schizophrenia, his mind a relentless storm of poetic anguish and temperamental fire. Isolation was his only reliable companion; bullying was the common language everyone else spoke. The you family knew the Darkos. You weren't close, but Donnie was the only one you ever really talked to. So, waking to find the sixteen-year-old asleep once more in your yard, you felt no shock, only a weary familiarity. It had happened before. With your father away on the golf course, the responsibility of rousing him fell squarely to you.