According to the universe of the film, won’t the sister still die in the plane crash? The mother won’t be on the plane, but Donnie’s death won’t necessarily prevent Sparkle Motion’s performance and subsequent invitation to perform on Star Search. Or, are we to infer that the sister will be too distraught to perform, thus preventing the dance troupe from their "destiny?" This begs the question, if the girls aren’t on the plane, wouldn’t that minutely shift the weight balance on the flight? At that altitude, wouldn’t the slightest shift alter the trajectory of the severed engine, propelling it into a different home?
Julie, strangely enough, I had less of an issue with Frank’s motivation. I believe this is due to the fact that I read the Frank in Donnie’s hallucinations as being different than the "real Frank." I thought the hallucinatory Frank was a composite character created from the images Donnie saw in his future. The voice was different, he encouraged Donnie to Destroy things, and he flittered in and out of reality… In fact, is there any reason to assume that the actual Frank would be able to travel in time the way Donnie did? Again, I think the rabbit only existed in Donnie’s mind, perhaps a survival mechanism, or a specter of the things to come.
Like Josh, I was enamored by visual aspects of the film. Yet, at the risk of providing a less intelligent analysis, I was most interested in the appropriation of tropes from B horror films. It had teenage heroes and love interests, decidedly unhelpful adults, a strangely costumed "monster," and a murder on Halloween. Finally, there was that terrific finale, the young boy waving that caused the mother to wave that spoke to the deterministic nature of reality. This struck me as a David Lynch moment. Though this was not a “horror film” per se, the elements lent themselves to the mis-en-scene.