Movies - TV
Frank The Rabbit’s Real Role In Donnie Darko, Explained
By DEBOPRIYAA DUTTA
It’s easy to paint Frank The Rabbit in “Donnie Darko” as a figment of Donnie's imagination, or a vivid hallucination manifested by a fractured psyche.
However, in Richard Kelly’s director’s cut, he etches a far more intriguing picture drawn from the fictitious book “The Philosophy of Time Travel.”
The book is briefly glimpsed in the theatrical version, but the director’s cut offers a canonical interpretation of the time travel paradox that Donnie is at the epicenter of.
The book states that every person connected to the Living Receiver (Donnie) in the Tangent Universe is the Manipulated Living.
However, if the manipulated living dies in the duplicated universe, they become the Manipulated Dead, who can move through time and directly guide the Living Receiver.
Frank clearly fits this description, as a version of him dies in the Tangent Universe on Halloween Night, implying that he traveled back in time to warn Donnie.