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Post by drb417 on Nov 17, 2004 0:20:32 GMT -5
Here are a couple of thoughts and observations I’ve been having about Jim Cunningham. I know most of them go against what is pretty much accepted, but they are something to think about non-the-less. I did a search and nothing came about this, so hopefully I am not repeating what some else has already said.
One of the things I noticed was that in the movie there is a scene where the mother is talking to another woman, and this woman is going on and on about how Jim Cunningham changed her life. She then makes the comment that she can’t believe he is not married. Yet in his obit it mentions that he has an estranged wife.
Here is my what if. What if Jim Cunningham really didn’t have all that kiddy porn in his house? What if it was planted there by Frank? Someone planted his wallet outside his house so that Donnie would find it, so why not also plant the kiddy porn.
The question then would be asked why did he then commit suicide in the PU? It could just be that he could no longer buy the love stuff and was overcome with fear that had nothing to do with the porn.
I was also thinking about, but have not fully developed yet, the idea that if Donnie is somehow the Christ figure than maybe Jim Cunningham is somehow the Judas figure, and therefore he must die also. Like I said that isn’t fully developed, but just something I was thinking about.
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Post by maryjane19 on Nov 19, 2004 7:14:10 GMT -5
you know mate you are making things far to complicated, Jim Cunningham IS a paedophile in the film, this is a main plot strand, you cant just ignore it to make up another theory. What if...what if nothing! he is crying at the end of the film because of the tangent universe leaving this imprint of memory/dream that people know he is a peadophile so he gets rid of it and kills himself....thats just how i get it. x
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Post by maryjane19 on Nov 19, 2004 7:16:04 GMT -5
by it i ment the kiddie porn
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Post by ProvidencePortal on Nov 19, 2004 8:44:32 GMT -5
Thanks for the post, drb417. To suggest that maybe Frank was behind the materials found in Jim's house certainly is a departure from what's commonly accepted -- but it's intriguing to me and, I think, reflective of a reading of the movie we haven't talked much about here. That is: what if our basic assumption that Frank is a good entity is wrong?
Indulge me for a moment while I offer a different perspective on the same material we've been discussing for quite awhile. Rather than an angelic (albeit bizarre) figure meant to help right the wrongs in the universe, let's look at Frank from the eyes of a teenager experiencing him. We know that Frank is a grotesque and disturbing figure that encourages Donnie to -- manipulates Donnie into -- destructive behavior that includes burning down a house and flooding a school. We also know Donnie is in treatment for some form of accute mental distress ... and that Donnie has a history of emotional problems that includes burning down another house and, having been caught, going to a juvenile correctional institution. After his escapades in the school and at Jim Cunningham's house, Donnie mentions that he anticipates being caught and, we presume, being incarcerated. Presumably Donnie is a disturbed young man who already is dealing with feelings of guilt, paranoia, distance from his loved ones and other sad and disquieting personal demons. Frank rides these levers like a mad train engineer, driving Donnie to new heights of shame, fear and loneliness.
While under the influence of Frank ... and, we might say, because of Frank ... Donnie is threatened with violence more than once and generally seems to become anathema to his entire community. He watches his new love terrified by family violence and abandonment before being rundown and killed by a car. He experiences horrifying alienation symbolized by the distrubing time-spears only he can see. He is chased, terrorized and tormented -- lost and alone, with his family gone -- until, finally, he is forced to choose a maniacal form of suicide.
Through this lens, this sounds to me not like a "coming of age sci-fi story," but instead like a shrieking trip through hell -- a guided tour led by our friend wearing the bunny suit. And why not? After all, I propose Frank has quite a score to settle with Donnie, who is the one who killed Frank after all ... and -- maybe we can assume, for the sake of exploring this idea -- thereby led Frank through his own trip through hell, resulting in Frank returning to the living as a tortured ghost with time-traveling powers.
So, what-ifs are fun. What if Frank is a vengeful, evil entity? And what if he's returned to torment Donnie, to cause him terrific agony and madness by waking him from his death beneath the engine to take him through a month of hell first ... and to cap it off by forcing Donnie to choose his own death, to in effect commit suicide beneath the engine.
What if?
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Post by gretchen on Nov 19, 2004 19:43:02 GMT -5
speechless! *sigh*
we can ALWAYS entertain "what ifs"
that's what we are here for, to discuss, dissect, theorize and hypothesize.
personally, i do disagree. i feel that one idea of the film was to show the other side to some of these characters, to show the characters themselves the error of their ways or the beauty of their true selves.
as you say yourself, if he wasn't a kiddie porn factory what need would he have to kill himself afterwards. personally, i also don't think his wallet was planted. i believe donnie was led to it, manipulated into finding it.
but these are my personal beliefs and theories.
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Post by ProvidencePortal on Nov 22, 2004 10:48:39 GMT -5
Yup -- pretty clear that my "what if" walkthrough above isn't what Kelly intended, and it certainly has its plot holes ... not to mention it makes a scary-looking rabbit even scarier and an emotionally charged movie quite dark. *Shrug* But, what if's are a fun excercise ... and I had fun exploring a different interpretation, just to explore it.
That said, what's above has no true footholds in the movie's mythos: Jim's running a child pornography production company and kills himself in the PU as a result ... Frank's a good guy, not a bad guy ... and Donnie's actions are heroic. Check, check, check.
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Post by Omnipotent on Nov 22, 2004 11:34:27 GMT -5
speechless! *sigh* we can ALWAYS entertain "what ifs" that's what we are here for, to discuss, dissect, theorize and hypothesize. personally, i do disagree. i feel that one idea of the film was to show the other side to some of these characters, to show the characters themselves the error of their ways or the beauty of their true selves. as you say yourself, if he wasn't a kiddie porn factory what need would he have to kill himself afterwards. personally, i also don't think his wallet was planted. i believe donnie was led to it, manipulated into finding it. but these are my personal beliefs and theories. I agree. |
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Post by Pete on Oct 23, 2023 18:33:40 GMT -5
Everyone is wrong, I’m sorry to say it. You’re all missing the ultimate point of the story and ending. Jim killing himself just adds to another unnecessary death that Donnie needs to reverse by going back into his bed for the engine to fall on him. In fact, you can’t possibly explain that he IS a pedophile, because if that was the case then when Donnie died to reverse everything, the Jim WOULDN'T have been caught since there was no fire. Why would the story be righting all the wrongs at the end but yet let the pedophile go unnoticed. It’s all meant to point to the fact that Jim’s arrest and death was not what Donnie wanted and subsequently that’s why he reversed all the deaths by selflessly letting himself be the sacrifice for them all.
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