The Butterfly Effect¸ 2004

The Butterfly Effect, 2004
Director: Eric Bress, j.Mackye Gruber
Cast: Ashton Kutcher, Melora Walters, Amy Smart



The Butterfly Effect in short: A young man blocks out harmful memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life.


Stage: Home theatre this time. Seen in the local cinema, several times at home.

Preps: The first time with none and with a giant impact afterwards. This time seeking new solutions to the idea of changing the past or being able to influence the one thing you did wrong and circled around your life completely.

Reality:
The title card hits you like a brick and makes you think throughout the movie, what it is that we should have impact on. Title Card: It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world. - Chaos Theory

The Chaos theory proves itself within this piece with a constant change of hystorical events that lead to differentiation in one or more person's life. First you are stunned with the normal life curve of Evan and all the people within his surroundings. All the traumatic events and all the blackouts that happen due to unnormal behaviour, abuse and correlated things. The hatred and evil some people can posess. And then the adrenalin continues as you tend to question yourself, if you already have such a gift as Evan does, is it right/fair to try to differ one's life and making other person miserable while making the first person happy? It's a constant question in history and power most of us would like to have and don't know how we would control it afterwards.

The movie implies that no person can play god (virtually) and take fate of other people's lives in his hands. The butterfly effect changes a slight thing in the past and then miracously is followed by the chain of events that influence all people's lives. And each time Evan tries to change, an alternative reality shows - none is satisfactory enough to make it count for all persons involved. Finally at the end the sacrifice is put into perspective. The last thing Evan does is sacrifice his own life to make all other persons around him happy and normal.

The idea of playing with the past and the future if you are able to, first started off in the trilogy Back to the future. However, in this scenario, upgraded and vividly played, not in a shape of a comedy, but in a brilliant drama.

The movie offers as many interpretations as one would want and beyond that, it's a superb time flashing / changing piece. This was one of the first movies ever made with a constant leaping into the past, making the spectator burning with braincell work about the connections and trying to keep pace with the story. A brilliant piece, more than worth seeing. I have seen it a lot of times and each time I find a new explanation and new philosophical approach to this.


My personal rating: 9,0 (try it out, it will rock your world. One of the best Kutcher's roles ever.)



Jason Treborn: You can't play God son.
You can't change who people are without destroying who they were.


The Butterfly Effect on IMDB
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