The Butterfly Effect
| The Butterfly Effect | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Eric Bress J. Mackye Gruber |
| Written by | Eric Bress J. Mackye Gruber |
| Produced by | Ashton Kutcher Anthony Rhulen Chris Bender J.C. Spink A.J. Dix Toby Emmerich |
| Starring | Ashton Kutcher Melora Walters Amy Smart Elden Henson William Lee Scott John Patrick Amedori Irene Gorovaia Kevin G. Schmidt Jesse James Logan Lerman Sarah Widdows Jake Kaese Cameron Bright Eric Stoltz Callum Keith Rennie Lorena Gale Ethan Suplee Camille Sullivan Tara Wilson Jesse Hutch |
| Cinematography | Matthew F. Leonetti |
| Edited by | Peter Amundson |
| Music by | Michael Suby |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates | January 23, 2004 |
Running time | Theatrical cut 113 min. Director's Cut 120 min. |
| Country |  |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $13 million |
| Box office | $96,000,000 |
The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American fantasy/drama movie starring Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, and others, distributed by New Line Cinema. The title is a reference to the butterfly effect, which theorises that a change in something seemingly innocuous, such as a flap of a butterfly's wings, may cause unexpected larger changes in the future, such as a hurricane. The Butterfly Effect is directed and written by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber.
The movie was followed by a largely unrelated direct-to-DVD sequel, The Butterfly Effect 2.
Plot summary
 | This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. (October 2008) |
Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who suffered severe traumas as a boy (Logan Lerman) and a teenager (John Patrick Amedori), blacks out frequently, often at moments of high stress. His closest companions are Lenny, a neighbor from several doors down with an interest in model airplanes, and Kaylee, a kindly girl that he forms a strong bond with. The trio often are accompanied by Kaylee's brother, Tommy, who is mentally unstable due to frequent abuses from his father. He is, however, very protective of Kaylee, and for the most part managed to keep his father away from her despite his instability and bullying of Lenny and Evan.
Evan's blackouts are frequent, though several events stand out in particular: a moment when he may have been sexually abused at a neighbor's house along with the Millers; participating in detonating a mailbox that accidentally resulted in the owner's death, along with her infant child; and the failed rescue attempt to save his dog from Tommy Miller, Kaylee Miller's protective brother who took the dog as an act of revenge, believing that Evan was stealing his sister away.
Due to the frequency of his blackouts and a family history of institutionalization, Evan pursues a degree in Psychology at a state university. Working closely with a professor, the two often discuss both repressed memories and theories of cognition. This interest has made him an above average student in psychology and earned the respect of his teachers, classmates, and quirky roommate, Thumper (Ethan Suplee). Evan remembers, although vaguely, that the Millers still live in their old hometown, and that Lenny has been unable to move on emotionally since the mailbox incident and his inability to help Evan save his dog.
After a short game of pool, Evan brings a girl back to the dorm, only for her to find his childhood journals. At her prodding, he discovers that when he reads from them, in particular any entry about a blackout, he is cognitively transported back to that moment, living the blackout in the present. When the duration of the blackout is complete, Evan awakens in the present.
At first he begins exploring his past while searching for an answer to heal his emotional wounds, but soon develops a new wrinkle. He is not hallucinating or awakening repressed memories, but apparently travels back in time, and is able to essentially "redo" parts of his past, thereby causing the blackouts he experienced as a child. During one such relapse, he accidentally drops a cigarette onto his shirt, resulting in a burn on his stomach. When he awakens, this burn has become a scar on his stomach. Soon after, he begins hypothesizing that if he can add scars, he may be able to make them disappear. Briefly reuniting with Kaylee, he discovers that she and her brother had been sexually abused by their father, and her first was during one such blackout. When Kaylee commits suicide the following day and Tommy threatens to kill him, he tries going back to the moment to change the outcome.
He appears in the situation and cajoles Mr. Miller into sobering up and actually being a good father, but as an unintended consequence, steers Mr. Miller's abuse towards Tommy, now the sole target of his father's violent tendencies. When Evan awakens, new memories flood into his brain, overlapping the first version with the second, creating initial confusion. He soon discovers that in this new life, he and Kaylee are together, popular with their respective fraternity and sorority, but that Evan has lost his relationship with Thumper and his old professors, who now believe him to be just another "frat boy." Even so, after treating Kaylee to dinner, Tommy returns and attacks him; Evan initially defends himself, but ultimately flies into a blind rage, killing Tommy.
In his subsequent incarceration, Evan realizes the difficulty in changing things, but determines to try again. This is complicated when one of the prison gangs steal his journals. Using some recovered pages, he convinces his cellmate to help him by scarring himself on the palms; when they appear "miraculously" on his hands, his devoutly Catholic cellmate helps him get the journals back during a prison riot.
He tries to alter the past again, this time attempting to successfully rescue his dog. Knowing Lenny's guilt about the exploding mailbox, he arms Lenny with a piece of metal so that he can free the dog before Tommy can kill it. Like before, events do not go according to plan; Kaylee is seriously scarred during the scuffle, and even though Evan talks Tommy out of killing his dog, a guilt-ridden Lenny stabs Tommy to death. Though Evan awakens to a life that looks much like the first, he knows that Kaylee has spiraled out of control; without her brother to protect her, she was sexually abused by her father and eventually ran away from home to a life of prostitution and drugs. Lenny was institutionalized for the murder, and while at the hospital, Evan discovers that his brain is deteriorating from the stress.
After a disastrous visit with Kaylee, he decides to get answers by visiting his father during a blackout when they were face-to-face in a mental institution. His father advises him not to try and change anything else, though Evan believes he can still fix everything.
He continues to try, becoming a paraplegic in the process when he is caught in the mailbox blast. This is perhaps the most frustrating attempt, though, since Tommy, Lenny, and Kaylee all end up better off, while he is confined to a wheelchair. Kaylee and Lenny are happily dating, while Tommy has become a born-again christian actively serving on his college campus since he saved the mother and infant in the past. After discussing what might have been with Kaylee, Evan attempts suicide, only to be saved by a compassionate Tommy. Evan decides to accept his fate, until Tommy takes him to see his mother, who is now dying of cancer--she apparently began chain-smoking after Evan was crippled.
In the next attempt, Evan revisits the day that he threatened Mr. Miller, but accidentally gets Kaylee killed in the process, rendering himself to a mental institution when he awakens. Once there, his family doctor refuses to give him his journals, stating that they "don't exist." He argues that they never have and that, like many times before, Evan is projecting his specific delusion again. Eventually realizing that he needs to go back further before the brain damage is irreversible, and knowing that he has to settle for an imperfect outcome, he arranges to go back one last time using a series of home movies to focus.
In this last venture, he goes back to his first meeting with Kaylee and tells her that he hates her and will kill her family if she ever talks to him. Kaylee retreats back to her family in tears, setting into motion a chain of events that spares both the Miller's from having to live with their father, and letting Lenny grow up well-adjusted without the bullying. Evan awakens to a life that is remarkably like the first, with the exception that he never knew the Millers and Lenny is his college roommate. The two burn his old journals and memorabilia from childhood together, with Evan confidently stating that he does not need them to know who he is.
The film ends eight years in the future, where Evan and Kaylee pass each other on a crowded metropolitan block, only to continue walking by, with only the faintest glance toward one another, and though each pause, neither stops. In the alternative ending evan while watching the series of home movies to focous, instead goes back in time to when he was a fetus while his mother was in labour, and he chokes himself, causing a miscarriage, and his mother goes into depression. But evreyone is left out better off, and kaylee gets married.
Cast
- Ashton Kutcher as Evan Treborn
- Melora Walters as Andrea Treborn
- Amy Smart as Kayleigh Miller
- Elden Henson as Lenny Kagan
- William Lee Scott as Tommy Miller
- John Patrick Amedori as Evan Treborn - 13
- Irene Gorovaia as Kayleigh Miller - 13
- Kevin G. Schmidt as Lenny Kagan - 13
- Jesse James as Tommy Miller - 13
- Logan Lerman as Evan Treborn - 7
- Sarah Widdows as Kayleigh Miller - 7
- Jake Kaese as Lenny Kagan - 7
- Cameron Bright as Tommy Miller - 7
- Eric Stoltz as George Miller
- Kevin Durand as Carlos
- Callum Keith Rennie as Jason Treborn
- Lorena Gale as Mrs. Boswell
- Ethan Suplee as Thumper
- Tara Wilson as Heidi
- Jesse Hutch as Spencer
- Sarah Gruber as Bystander 1
DVD release
The DVD was released on July 6, 2004 in the Infinifilm edition. The Infinifilm edition was released with the theatrical cut (113 min.) on one side and the Director's cut (120 min.) on the other.
- Beyond the Movie features:
- Documentaries:
- The Science and Psychology of the Chaos Theory documentary
- The History and Allure of Time Travel documentary
- Fact Track - Trivia Subtitle Track
- All Access Pass features:
- Filmmaker Commentary by directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber
- Deleted and alternate scenes
- The Creative Process
- Visual effects
- Storyboard gallery
- Original theatrical trailer
- DVD-ROM features:
- Script-to-Screen (Director's Cut)
- Commentary digest
- Gallery
- Scene medleys
Sequel
The film was released on DVD on October 10, 2006, it was directed by John R. Leonetti and was largely unrelated.
The third installment in the Butterfly Effect series is set to be released by After Dark Films in 2009. This sequel will be called Butterfly Effect: Revelation and will follow the life of a young man who journeys back in time in order to solve the mystery surrounding his high school girlfriend's death, only to release a vicious serial killer.
Awards and nominations
- 2005 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)
- Nominated—Best Science Fiction Film
- Won—Pegasus Audience Award — Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
- Nominated—Choice Movie: Thriller
Reception
According to the aggregate movie site Rotten Tomatoes, the Butterfly Effect garnered poor reviews, with the film receiving a 33% rating classifying it as "Rotten".
The movie, however, was very popular with audiences, grossing around $57 million at the US box office, ($96 million worldwide,) despite the often difficult subject matter and low budget of only around $13 million.[1] Also, the IMDB rated the movie 7.8/10 with over 70,000 users.
External links
