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 | $13,000,000 |
| Box office | $96,000,000 |
The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American fantasy/drama film directed and written by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber. 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 tornado.
The movie was followed by a largely unrelated direct-to-DVD sequel, The Butterfly Effect 2.
Plot
Backstory
The film begins with Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) writing a note underneath a desk, explaining that if someone can read his note, his plan did not work.
The film then flashes back to 13 years earlier, where a young Evan Treborn (Logan Lerman) lives with his mother, Andrea, in a quiet surburban area. As Evan's mother drops him off at school, Evan's teacher warns his mother about a disturbing drawing he drew, but also he did not remember drawing it. Worried about her son's memory, Andrea takes him to the doctor for a head scan and he then asks her to give him a journal to record his life in, helping him to recover from his blackouts. The next morning, Evan blacks out again, and is holding a knife in the kitchen. Later on that day, Evan goes to his neighbour's house, where he is meant to play with Kayleigh (Sarah Widdows) and Tommy (Cameron Bright). However, Evan suffers another black out as their father George (Eric Stoltz) tells them they will be making a film. Evan wakes up noticing that they are in the basement. George then makes Kayleigh and Evan participate in child pornography, while an angry and spiteful Tommy watches on.
Andrea goes back to the doctor for Evans results, which prove negative of "his father's illness". The doctor then believes that the blackouts are stress-related due to not having a father. Evan then goes to visit his father Jason in a psychiatric hospital. As Evan nervously talks to his father, he blacks out again, and wakes up to find his father strangling him.
The film jumps forward 6 years. Evan (John Patrick Amedori), Kayleigh (Irene Gorovaia) and another friend Lenny Kagan (Kevin G. Schmidt) are sitting in the Miller's basement while Tommy (Jesse James) is looking for his father's blockbuster. They find it and place it in a letterbox. As it is close to exploding, Evan places his hands over Kayleigh's ears, and then blacks out again. He wakes up in the forest, where Kayleigh and Tommy are panicking, and Lenny has passed out due to shock. Evan's mother asks him what happened, but he tries to explain that he doesn't remember as he blacked out. Later on, Evan receives hypnotherapy to try and remember the events of the latest blackout. Evan tries to remember but begins to have a seizure. Tommy, Kayleigh and Evan go to the cinemas but Kayleigh leaves as the movie is too disturbing. Evan comforts her, and Tommy is angry that Evan likes Kayleigh. Tommy beings to show signs of conduct disorder when he beats up a another person. Lenny, however, is confined to his bedroom making model aeroplanes. Evan tells Kayleigh that he and his mother are moving houses soon. Kayleigh and Evan break Lenny out of his room back to the forest, where Tommy is about to set Evan's captured dog on fire. Evan blacks out again and wakes up finding the ashes and remains of his dog. The next day, Evan and his mother move away.
Present Day
7 years later, Evan is majoring in psychology in college. He shares a room with his heavily gothic friend, Thumper (Ethan Suplee) and has been living a normal life without any blackouts. They go out to celebrate, and Evan meets a girl which he brings back to his room. She finds his old diaries under his bed and beckons him to read them. He reads back in his diary about his last blackout where his dog is being set on fire. As Even continues to read, he begins to transport to the moment he blacked out. He watches Tommy set fire to his dog first-hand.
Evan goes back to his college room, and reads his diary about the blockbuster. He transports back in time, to watch a mother and her baby die as they open the letterbox. However, at the time Evan was smoking a cigarette that fell on him. As Evan wakes up back into the present day, he sees that the cigarette left a burn mark on his stomach from transporting back into his memory. Evan drives to meet Lenny (Elden Henson) who is still a reclusive in his bedroom, making model aeroplanes. That night, Evan and his mother go out for dinner. As a joke afterwards, they visit a fortune-teller, who tells Evan that he has no lifeline, and was never meant to be.
Evan goes back to visit Kayleigh (Amy Smart) (for the first time since he left) who is now a waitress at a dingy café. Evan questions her about the time they were forced to make the pornographic film for her dad. The talk brings up old wounds for Kayleigh, and after Evan leaves, he receives a call from Tommy, saying that Kayleigh killed herself.
Prison Mate
Understanding that he can now go back to his black outs and changing the past to effect the present day, Evan reads about the blackout before making the pornographic film with Kayleigh. He tells her father to love his daughter and to discipline his son. Evan comes back into the present day, where he and Kayleigh are boyfriend and girlfriend and are popular fraternity/sorority students. Evan discovers all his new friends, and now notices that he and Thumper do not talk. In a bid to show his love for Kayleigh, Evan arranges a special night for them two. The night is ruined when his car is vandalized and meets up Tommy. Kayleigh tells Evan that her father then abused Tommy after Evan told her father to treat her well. In self-defense, Evan kills Tommy, and goes to prison. To try and fix up the problems he has caused, Evan befriends his prison cell mate and tells him that he can talk to God. Evan goes back to the time he blacked out while drawing the disturbing picture, and impales his hands on sharp note holders, making it look like he has stigmata. The Cell mate argees to help him. They go to the "higher" cell mates, and Evan says he will do whatever they want, to get back his journals that they stole. They tell him to give them blow jobs, without knowing Evan has a knife in his hand. When Evan goes down to do it, Evan stabs the first guy in his penis, and Evan's cell mate runs in, and attacks the other guy. Then precedes to close the cell, to make sure no one else can get in. Evan grabs the journals. While quickly reading in jail, Evan transports back to the moment before Tommy kills Evan's dog.
Lenny in the psychiatric ward
Before they walk up to the scene of Tommy killing Evan's dog, Evan finds a sharp object to cut open the sack with. Just as Tommy is about to torch the sack with the dog inside it, Evan explains to Tommy that he can change. Tommy drops the torch, but Lenny stabs Tommy in the back with the object. Evans transports back to the present, where he is in his dorm room with Thumper, but the beds are on the opposite sides. Evan visits Lenny in the psychiatric hospital. He goes back to the college campus, and reads about the the time he met his father. However, the meeting does not change his future. He then later meets up with Kayleigh, who is now a prostitute. He tells her that her life can be better and he will go back in time to change it for her.
Amputee
Evan reads back to his blackout right before the blockbuster explodes. He runs up to the letterbox, telling the lady to stay back. Tommy pins the lady down to the ground, and Evan wakes up in the present.
Evan is in his room in college, however he shares his room with a normal Lenny. Evan notices that he is paraplegic and his arms are amputated at the elbows. Tommy is now wildly religious, and Kayleigh is dating Lenny. His mother is suffering from lung cancer as she began chain smoking after Evan's accident.
Evan in the psychiatric ward
Still unhappy with his life, Evan reads his diary, and transports himself back before he visits the Miller's house. Evan needs to bring something with him to destroy the blockbuster, so he heads into the kitchen and finds a knife. As nothing changed, Evan goes back to his present, and is still an amputee. He tries again, going to the point before making the pornographic film with Kayleigh. He finds the blockbuster in the basement and lights it. It is knocked out of his hand, and rolls to the feet of Kayleigh, where she picks it up.
In the present, Evan has in a psychiatric hospital for killing Kayleigh. He asks the doctors for his journals to go back and fix up his problems, however the doctor informs him that the journals are something his mind has made up, and that he is sounding more and more like his father, who always asked for a photo album. Evan then realises that with photos he can travel back in time again. He watches a film of his childhood: Lenny, 5, has a birthday party. Kayleigh is there.
Kayleigh is obviously smitten with Evan. So Evan leans over to Kayleigh as if he's about to kiss her. Then whispers in her ear: I hate you. If you ever come near me again, I'll kill you and your whole family. Kayleigh reacts predictably. Bursting into tears and runs into Kayleigh's mother's arms.
Evan is transported to the present again and as his memories assault him, he sees that Kayleigh and Tommy never move to live with their dad. He has finally succeeded. Later Evan and Lenny silently dump a box of home movies, photo albums, old report cards, etc. so that Evan can no longer change the past again.
Cut to 2010, an attractive woman wearing a power suit approaches from the other direction. Evan has to look closely, but it's Kayleigh. A mature woman, now.
He stumbles slightly, caught off guard. As she passes, her eyes linger on his a little longer than necessary, but there's no recognition. Evan watches her continue past him and down the sidewalk.
Director's Cut alternate Ending
The ending on the director's cut version of the movie is very different. Instead of seeing a childhood birthday, Evan sees footage of his own birth. Inside his mothers womb, he manages to choke himself, while his mother pleads with the doctors to save her from a third still birth. In this way, Evan has removed himself from the timestream entirely, as he was 'never meant to be born' - a few flashes of how things would have been without him are seen, with every better off for his non-involvement.
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
- Dexter Paine as Psychologist
- 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
- Links:
- Link to original website
- Link to exclusive content at Infinifilm site
Sequel
The film was released on DVD on October 10, 2006, it was directed by John R. Leonetti and was largely unrelated.
The Butterfly Effect 3 Benderspink and FilmEngine will produce the third installment of The Butterfly Effect along with After Dark Films, which will distribute it theatrically in the U.S. as part of its After Dark Horrorfest "8 Films to Die For" series. Holly Brix ("The Lost Girls") wrote the screenplay, which centers on a young man discovers he has inherited the powers of "The Butterfly Effect" and attempts to solve the mystery of his high school girlfriend's death using his newfound ability, only to unwittingly unleash a vicious serial killer. Production will start September 1 in Vancouver with casting underway. The first film is awesome, and now that there's a serial killer involved, this could prove to be interesting.
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". Based on 69,192 votes IMDB members gave it an average of 7.8 out of 10. Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5 stars out of 4.
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]
External links
