Donnie Darko would have been a better movie without the time loop plot

When I initially watched the movie, I had pretty much viewed it entirely from the lens of a kid going through a mental illness. In my opinion, the movie could have been a far better expose of what mental illness can be like for an individual going through it, and can provide people who have never gone through psychosis/schizophrenia/delusions/etc... a realistic experience of what it's like. I kept initially thinking that the majority of conclusions Donnie was drawing was a result of aberrant salience, ie a symptom of schizophrenia where an individual draws meaning from irrelevant things and thus behave inappropriately, only to be (at least myself personally) upset that the director had those things be part of the time loop plot.

It would have also been very educational and revealing to witness how individuals' interactions with people with mental illness influences them and could potentially exacerbate their condition. For instance, when he has the heart to heart with his father, who informs Donnie to "Fuck em all", this could easily have been a trigger for an emotionally disturbed psychotic individual to engage in violent behavior, and had the movie followed this plot line, would have been a very insightful and powerful story of the way certain individuals can influence others to horrific outcomes.

I liked the characters of Jim Cunningham and Kitty Farmer, and the principle as well, as it's very apparent at least in the United States how certain individuals attempt to reduce the complexity of the human experience, and in doing so end up alienating individuals (Donnie) who have a desperate need to engage intellectually with life on a deeper level. It also is a good take on how individuals who really try to push the boundaries of the rigidity of the educational system, such as the science teacher and the English teacher, end up getting fired or having to censor/water down their teaching so as to tow in line. There are many troubled individuals who understand at a deeper level the inauthenticity and deceitfulness of traditional education and society as a whole, and without a proper authority to which they can have their feelings, thoughts, and beliefs validated, end up alienated and mentally disturbed. The movie easily could have expanded on this as Donnie being the character who understood this yet had his behavior and beliefs continually repressed, leading to mental disturbance and psychosis.

In my opinion, had the movie more strongly headed in that direction of how traditional education, parental influence, peer interactions, etc... interact with and potentially are causal in mental illness, the movie would have been far more potent and engaging. The time plot loop takes away from the veracity and reality of the movie's potential and moves it into more of a science fiction movie, which is fine if that's ones cup of tea, but personally, I would of rather have seen it as a serious, dark exploration of society and mental illness.