Director Richard Kelly also spoke about the meaning of Donnie Darko ( via NME), and he admitted that most of the fan theories are all wrong. However, he was also coy in the interview about many of the questions concerning Donnie Darko's ending. He avoided the idea that Donnie was dead all along, saying that life and death can co-exist. He did say Donnie wasn't hallucinating and everything in the movie is real "to a certain extent." Finally, he said "life could be a dream" and Roberta Sparrow was onto something with Philosophy of Time Travel. More intriguing is the idea that Donnie is being shown the future by Frank – a sort of Ghost of Christmas Future in a rabbit costume, if you will. Watch the film with this in mind and it sort of makes sense.

Thank you to all the fans who've come up to me over the years with that confused look on their faces and asked me: 'What the f**k is Donnie Darko about??'" Her theories tie in with Donnie's own visions, and during a tragic evening spent with his friend Gretchen (Jena Malone), he realises that the end of the world Frank prophesied is just hours away.

Cult movie Donnie Darko was released 22 years ago – and fans are still debating what the enjoyably head-scratching, Jake Gyllenhaal-starring drama is all about. While many people are as confused as Jake by a plot that also features a budding romance for Donnie, his younger sister's performance of Duran Duran's ‘Notorious’ with the Sparkle Motion dance troupe, and the revelation that Cunningham has a hoard of child porn in a secret room at his house – there are a handful of theories about what it all means.

In the last two decades, it has become much more than that. While Donnie Darko started life as a box-office flop (partly because it was released just after 9/11 in the US, when no-one was going to cinemas), it later became a word-of-mouth hit on DVD and at midnight screenings. It is now regarded as a cult classic – and one that still has viewers debating the ending – and discussing it at length online. Is it a teen movie, a 1980s period piece, a musing on life and death – or a sci-fi film about time-travel? Writer/director Richard Kelly, who was just 25 years old when he made the movie, prefers audiences to decide, but he did tell the Los Angeles Times in 2001: "I wanted to write a film that pushed the envelope by combining science fiction with a coming-of-age tale." The tangent universe is certainly the first chapter from the prologue of The Philosophy of Time Travel," he said to NME, "so I believe there's a lot more to that book than meets the eye."

In fact, they prevent the film from being a text that the viewer could read into whatever they wanted… in this version of the film, you are almost forced to put very specific pieces into a singular puzzle. And it feels less magical as a result." Or, to put it another way, everything that happens to Donnie in the movie is manipulating him to the point where he will save the Primary Universe, even though it will lead to his own death there.

For example, rabbit Frank persuades him to flood the school, which leads to Donnie bumping into Gretchen on the way home. They become a couple, and her death soon after causes him to shoot the man responsible – a man named Frank who has a rabbit costume because it is Halloween – thus creating Frank, the manipulated dead man. Donnie then realises he can 'save' Gretchen by sending the jet engine though a vortex, rewinding time and erasing the history that led to her death. Frank shows Donnie the next 28 days of his life and at the end, Donnie chooses not to actually live them because he has seen so many tragic things will happen. However, it doesn't explain why The Philosophy of Time Travel book is mentioned (or the strange Abyss-like vapour trails Donnie can see, leading him towards things) and the theory unravels when you ponder it too much.Seeing a vortex has formed over his house, Donnie drives to the edge of town, and watches as a plane gets caught in it and one of the engines is ripped away. The last 28 days rewind, and Donnie wakes up in his bedroom just as the jet engine falls from the sky. Well, not exactly – when the Director's Cut was released in 2016, not everyone was thrilled with the news that the mysteries of Donnie Darko had been solved.