The title of the movie that is to be analyzed is Donnie Darko. The psychological disorder associated with the movie is paranoid schizophrenia. Donnie Darko is a film about a schizophrenic teenager living in Middlesex, Virginia who one day wakes up to be led into sleepwalking by a new imaginary friend, Frank. Frank, who appears in a menacing rabbit costume, manipulates Donnie into doing destructive, violent things, and his influence increases more and more throughout the movie.
According to the DSM-IV, schizophrenia is a persistent, often chronic and usually serious mental disorder affecting a variety of aspects of behavior, thinking, and emotion. It also states that thinking may be disconnected and illogical. Notes from class also show that symptoms of the disorder are hallucinations, delusions, and garbled speech. While those symptoms are true of schizophrenia, the only apparent symptoms shown in the film are hallucinations, and delusion. With Frank’s presence in Donnie’s life becoming more and more influential, Donnie takes more risks, is generally angrier about things, and seems to not care about consequences.
The first indication of Donnie’s schizophrenia is when he wakes up at 8 minutes and 38 seconds into the movie. He hears Frank’s voice, and it tells him to come closer. This hallucination forces Donnie to sleepwalk, and actually ends up saving his life, because while he was gone, a piece of a plane crashed through his house’s roof, right through his bedroom where he would’ve been sleeping. This is an example of a hallucination, which is the main symptom of schizophrenia. This voice becomes the main source of his hallucinations throughout the rest of the movie as well.
The Term Paper on Schizophrenia Positive Symptoms
INTRODUCTION Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. Patients experience progressive personality changes and a breakdown in their relationships with the outside world. They have disorganized and abnormal thinking, behaviour and language and become emotionally unresponsive or withdrawn." The first signs, usually only noticed in looking back on events, are likely to include an unexpected ...
A different symptom of schizophrenia that affected Donnie was change in behavior. He became more aggressive and reckless. This first shows when he floods the school and vandalizes the statue and area around the statue. His therapist later states that Donnie’s aggressive behavior stems from his inability to cope with forces in the world that seem to be threatening, so it becomes very apparent that there is change in his behavior and ways of thinking.
Further into the movie, Donnie’s changes became more affecting of his life. He grew more attached to Frank and his manipulative ways. Donnie became obsessed with him, time travel, and what Frank’s “plan” was. At 1 hour and 23 minutes Donnie talks to his therapist saying, “I have to obey him. He saved my life. I have to obey him or I’ll be left all alone” He becomes delusional in the sense that he feels he must obey how Frank manipulates him because he saved him the night he first woke him up. That delusion of a sense of owing Frank everything in order to not be left alone is a symptom of schizophrenia.
The movie has shown a somewhat realistic view of how one perceives things and behaves with schizophrenia. Though one can read on psychological disorders, it is important to see examples visually of these things, either fictional or nonfictional, because it helps one to have a better understanding of how psychological disorders affect those with them, and the people around them.
Works Cited
Donnie Darko. Dir Richard Kelly. Jake Gyllenhaal.
Flower Films, 2001. DVD.
Sperti, K. Bolingbrook H.S. Psychological Disorders.
November 26th. Powerpoint. January 6, 2013.
