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The Butterfly Effect

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This article is about the film. For the chaos theory example, see Butterfly effect. For other uses, see Butterfly effect (disambiguation).
The Butterfly Effect
Theatrical release poster
Directed by
Written by
  • Eric Bress
  • J. Mackye Gruber
Produced by
Starring
CinematographyMatthew F. Leonetti
Edited byPeter Amundson
Music byMichael Suby
Production
company
Distributed byNew Line Cinema
Release date
  • January 23, 2004 (2004-01-23)
Running time
114 minutes
120 minutes (Director's cut)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$13 million[1]
Box office$96,060,858[1]

The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American science-fiction psychological thriller film that was written and directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. The title refers to the butterfly effect, a popular hypothetical example of chaos theory which illustrates how small initial differences may lead to large unforeseen consequences over time.

Kutcher plays 20-year-old student Evan Treborn, with Amy Smart as his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh Miller. He finds he has the ability to travel back in time to inhabit his former self and change the present. Having been the victim of several childhood traumas aggravated by stress-induced memory losses, he attempts to set things right for himself and his friends, but there are unintended consequences for all. The film draws heavily on flashbacks of the characters' lives at ages 7 and 13, and presents several alternate present-day outcomes as Evan attempts to change the past, before settling on a final outcome.

The film received a poor critical reception, but was nevertheless a commercial success, producing gross earnings of $96 million from a budget of $13 million. The film won the Pegasus Audience Award at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Science Fiction Film at the Saturn Awards and Choice Movie: Thriller in the Teen Choice Awards.

Plot

In the year 2002, Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) frequently suffers from blackouts, often at moments of high stress. As a young child (played by Logan Lerman) and adolescent (played by John Patrick Amedori), Evan suffered many severe sexual and psychological traumas. These traumas include being forced to take part in child pornography, being strangled by his mentally-ill father, causing an accident with dynamite with his friends, and seeing his dog being burned by his friend. Seven years later, while entertaining a girl in his dorm room, he realizes that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he can travel back in time, and is able to redo parts of his past. His time traveling episodes account for the frequent blackouts he experienced as a child. However, there are consequences to his choices that propagate back to his present life, his alternate personal futures progress from college student, to prisoner, to amputee. His efforts are driven by the desire to undo the most unpleasant events of his childhood which coincide with his mysterious blackouts, including saving his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh (Amy Smart) from being molested by her father (Eric Stoltz) and tormented by her sadistic brother (William Lee Scott).

The actions he takes, and enables others to take during his blackouts, change the timeline in the new future where he awakes. As he continues to do this he realizes that even though his intentions are good, his actions have unforeseen consequences. Moreover, the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternate timelines causes his brain damage and severe nosebleeds. Ultimately, he decides that his attempts to alter the past end up only harming those he cares about, and realizes that the main cause of everyone's suffering in all the different timelines is himself.

At the conclusion of the film, Evan purposely travels back in time one final time to the day he meets Kayleigh as a child. He purposefully upsets her so she will live with her mother instead of her father, never meet him, and therefore live a good life without him.

An alternate ending shown as the main ending on some versions of the DVD concludes with Evan going back to the day he was due to be born, where his mother is in labor in the hospital. He then proceeds to knot his umbilical cord, causing him to die before birth. This seemingly saves those close to him from their original fates. His mother is later shown having another child, a daughter, with her husband, suggesting he never became institutionalized.


Cast

Reception

Critical reception was generally poor. Sean Axmaker of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called it a "metaphysical mess", criticizing the film's science fiction mechanics for being "fuzzy at best and just plain sloppy the rest of the time".[2] Mike Clark of USA Today also gave the film a negative review, stating, "Normally, such a premise comes off as either intriguing or silly, but the morbid subplots (there's prison sex, too) prevent Effect from becoming the unintentional howler it might otherwise be."[3] Additionally, Ty Burr of The Boston Globe went as far as saying, "whatever train-wreck pleasures you might locate here are spoiled by the vile acts the characters commit."[4]

According to the film review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, The Butterfly Effect garnered mixed to average reviews, with the film receiving a 33% rating — classifying it as "Rotten".[5] On Metacritic, it has a score of 30 (generally negative reviews) out of 100.[6]

Box office

Despite the critical failure, the film was a commercial success, earning $17,065,227 and claiming the #1 spot in its opening weekend.[7] Against a $13 million budget, The Butterfly Effect grossed around $57,938,693 at the U.S. box office and $96,060,858 worldwide.[1]

Awards and nominations

2004 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)
2004 Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film
  • Pegasus Audience Award — Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber - won
2004 Teen Choice Awards

Home media

The film was released on DVD as the Infinifilm edition on July 6, 2004. This edition was released with the theatrical cut (113 minutes) on one side and the director's cut (120 minutes) on the other. The DVD also includes two documentaries ("The Science and Psychology of the Chaos Theory" and "The History and Allure of Time Travel"), a trivia subtitle track, filmmaker commentary by directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, deleted and alternate scenes, and a short feature called "The Creative Process" among other things.[8]

Alternate endings

An alternate ending shows Evan and Kayleigh stopping on the sidewalk when they cross paths. They introduce themselves and Evan asks her out for coffee.[9]

Another alternate ending is similar to the one shown in the film, except this time Evan, after hesitating, turns and follows Kayleigh.[10] This ending was utilized in the film's novelization, written by James Swallow and published by Black Flame.

In the director's cut of the movie, Evan takes himself to where his mother was going in to labor, and strangles himself in her womb.

Sequels

The Butterfly Effect 2 was released on DVD on October 10, 2006. It was directed by John R. Leonetti and was largely unrelated to the original film. It features a brief reference to the first film in the form of a newspaper headline referring to Evan's father, as well as using the same basic time travel mechanics.

The third installment in the series, Revelations, was released by After Dark Films in 2009. This sequel follows the life of a young man who journeys back in time in order to solve the mystery surrounding his high school girlfriend's death. This film has no direct relation to the first two and uses slightly different time travel mechanics.

References

  1. ^ a b c The Butterfly Effect at Box Office Mojo
  2. ^ Axmaker, Sean (22 January 2004). "'Butterfly Effect' is wrapped in a cocoon of grim absurdity". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  3. ^ Clark, Mike (22 January 2004). "Change is not so good for Kutcher in 'The Butterfly Effect'". USA Today. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  4. ^ Burr, Ty (23 January 2004). "Kutcher falls flat in 'The Butterfly Effect'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  5. ^ "The Butterfly Effect (2004)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  6. ^ "Butterfly Effect, The Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
  7. ^ "'Butterfly Effect' floats to top of box office". AP. 25 January 2004. Retrieved 21 May 2011.
  8. ^ "The Butterfly Effect (Infinifilm Edition) (2004)".
  9. ^ Ashton Kutcher (Executive Producer). Happy Ending. New Line Cinema.
  10. ^ Ashton Kutcher (Executive Producer). Open Ending (DVD). New Line Cinema.
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