The Tangent Universe begins due to an error or "glitch" in time. This results in an object known as an Artifact, which does not exist in this reality. In the film, that Artifact is the crashed jet ...

Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" opens with a nightmarish conversation ... If we are to apply these rules to the film, then the jet plane engine that collapses in Donnie's room at the beginning ...

When young Donnie escapes death (by a fallen plane engine in his bedroom), a sequence ... Basically, Donnie Darko takes the typical teen struggle genre to a whole new existential level complete ...