Ashton Kutcher as
Evan Treborn
Amy
Smart as Kayleigh Miller
William Lee
Scott as Tommy Miller
Elden Henson as
Lenny Kagan
Eric
Stoltz as George Miller
Melora Walters as
Andrea Treborn
Written and directed by
Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller
Rated R for violence, sexual content, language and
brief drug use
Chaos theory teaches us that
small events can have enormous consequences. An opening title informs us that
butterfly flapping its wings in Asia could result in a hurricane halfway around
the world. Yes, although given the number of butterflies and the determination
with which they flap their little wings, isn't it extraordinary how rarely
that happens? "The Butterfly Effect" applies this theory to the
lives of four children whose early lives are marred by tragedy. When one of
them finds that he can go back in time and make changes, he tries to improve
the present by altering the past.
The characters as young adults
are played by Ashton Kutcher, as Evan, a college psych major; Amy
Smart and William Lee Scott as Kayleigh and Tommy, a brother
and sister with a pedophile father; and Elden Henson as Lenny,
their friend. The story opens in childhood, with little Evan seriously weird.
His drawings at kindergarten are sick and twisted (and also, although nobody
ever mentions it, improbably good for a child). He has blackouts, grabs kitchen
knives, frightens his mother (Melora Walters), becomes a suitable case for
treatment.
A shrink suggests that he keep a
daily journal. This he does, although apparently neither the shrink nor the
mother ever read it, or their attention might have been snagged by entries
about how Mr. Miller (Eric Stoltz), father of Kayleigh and Tommy, forced them
all to act in kiddie porn movies. Evan hangs onto the journals, and one day
while reading an old one at school he's jerked back into the past and
experiences a previously buried memory.
One thing he'd always done, after
moving from the old neighborhood, was to promise Kayleigh "I'll come back
for you." (This promise is made with handwriting as precocious as his
drawing skills.) The flashbacks give him a chance to do that, and eventually he
figures out that by reading a journal entry, he can return to that page in his
life and relive it. The only problem is, he then returns to a present that is
different than the one he departed from -- because his actions have changed
everything that happened since.
This is a premise not unknown to
science fiction, where one famous story has a time-traveler stepping on a
cockroach millions of years ago and wiping out humanity. The remarkable thing
about the changes in "The Butterfly Effect" is that they're so
precisely aimed: They apparently affect only the characters in the movie. From
one reality to the next, Kayleigh goes from sorority girl to hooker, Evan zaps
from intellectual to frat boy to prisoner, and poor Lenny spends some time as
Kayleigh's boyfriend and more time as a hopeless mental patient.
Do their lives have no effect on
the wider world? Apparently not. External reality remains the same, apart from
minute adjustments to college and prison enrollment statistics. But it's unfair
to bring such logic to bear on the story, which doesn't want to really study
the butterfly effect, but simply to exploit a device to jerk the characters
through a series of startling life changes. Strange, that Evan can remember
everything that happened in the alternate lifetimes, even though by the theory
of the movie, once he changes something, it didn't happen.
Ashton Kutcher has become a
target lately; the gossip press can't forgive him for dating Demi Moore,
although that's a thing many sensible young men dream of doing. He was
allegedly fired from a recent film after the director told him that he
needed acting lessons. Can he act? He can certainly do everything that's
required in "The Butterfly Effect." He plays a convincing kid in his
early 20s, treating each new reality with a straightforward realism when most
actors would be tempted to hyperventilate under the circumstances.
The plot provides a showcase for
acting talent, since the actors have to play characters who go through wild
swings (even Evan's mom has a wild ride between good health and death's door).
And there's a certain grim humor
in the way the movie illustrates the truth that you can make plans, but you
can't make results. Some of the futures Even returns to are so seriously wrong
from his point of view that he's lucky he doesn't just disappear from
the picture, having been killed at 15, say, because of his meddling.
I enjoyed "The Butterfly
Effect," up to a point. That point was reached too long before the end of
the movie. There's so much flashing forward and backward, so many spins of
fate, so many chapters in the journals, that after awhile I felt that I, as
well as time, was being jerked around.
Eric Bress and J. Mackye
Gruber, the co-writers and directors, also collaborated on "Final
Destination 2" (2003), another film in which fate works in mysterious way,
its ironies to reveal. I gave that half of a star, so "The Butterfly
Effect" is five times better. And outside, the wind is rising ...
