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The Butterfly Effect
Psychological Thriller / English / 2004
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
ChatGPT suggested revisiting it, which I've intended on doing for a while. It's been a few years since seeing it and I remember it being good.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Dogs, mice, maggots.
The premise of this movie is much simpler than the previous few time travel movies, and believe it or not, I have not intentionally sought out time travel movies to binge, but it goes as follows:
Evan, played by Ashton Kutcher (and two other younger actors), grows up with a dysfunctional friend group and experiences a series of traumatic incidents, including unintentionally killing a mother and child in an act of petty vandalism, burning a dog alive, and being forced to perform sexual acts together by the father of two of three friends.
These events are initially experienced as prolonged blackouts because Evan represses the experience, however the cause is attributed to a genetic brain disorder which his father had and was later committed for.
In an effort to retain memory, he's encouraged to journal his experiences and eventually when he's older he discovers that by reading his journals he can recall the periods of blackout and even affect them with his current consciousness, changing the outcome of his past.
His various attempts to undo the different things that went wrong in his life result in finding himself in entirely new alternate realities, some with very big differences, some with very small differences, but all of them with unintended consequences.
I find this concept very appealing because I imagine, despite how much it appears to pain and damage him, that I would probably do the same. It's such a weird feeling to see established characters who are happy, healthy, and successful lose all of that and often as a result of decisions that were made downstream of a single choice you made differently.
This is the entire point of the movie of course, but I think the point is well made. Evan running to stop the mailbox explosion incentivizes Tommy to feign saving the mother and baby, the outcome of these incidents are that Tommy fancies himself divinely inspired and turns to Christ, and Lenny never develops PTSD, and Kayleigh fall for him.
It's not a very happy ending for Evan who loses his arms and ability to walk (which is a better effect than Furiosa losing her ****ing arm 20 ******* years later), but it's possibly the best outcome he could have hoped for if he wanted the best for all of his friends.
Unfortunately, his decision that confines him into a wheelchair also drives his mother to chainsmoking and by this point in life she has terminal lung cancer, so once again Evan is driven to try and fix things.
But how can you read back journals you never wrote with hands you never had?
I watched the Director's Cut of this movie and checked out all of the alternative endings and I'm inclined to say the Director's Cut ending is best, where he travels back to his birth and strangles himself in the womb.
My main issue with this ending, other than it being sad, is that... it's not super clear that this even resolves all of the traumatic incidents that he was involved in; it's suggested that Kayleigh leaves her father if he wasn't around, so that solves the CP issue, provided we're okay with him molesting Tommy instead, and we already saw the result of that timeline.
Does Evan and Kayleigh's absence somehow also remove Lenny from the picture? Tommy could still have pushed Lenny to try to bomb the mailbox, but I suppose Evan did give him the last pat on the back that convinced him to do it. And even after that, Lenny would have never left his house had Evan and Kayleigh not shown up and brought him to where Tommy was killing the dog.
So I dunno, maybe it wraps up all loose ends, but I'm not sure.
I do have to say there are some REALLY dumb moments in this movie.
For one, hypnosis is a recurring theme, just like in Donnie Darko, and it's played completely straight which irritates me because hypnosis, as far as I'm aware, is pseudo-scientific bullshit. I'm confident that nobody in the cast has ever been hypnotized or even witnessed someone be hypnotized, it just doesn't happen. It's as genuine as an exorcism.
There are also some ultra cringe moments of dialog like when Evan travels back to the basement where Kayleigh's dad wants to film them having sex and he just busts out by calling him a "****bag" and threatening him.
The response from the dad is "How are you doing this?"
Doing what? Talking? In a threatening manner? Is that beyond the capabilities of a child to call you a ****bag and say he'll castrate you if you ever touch her? What a completely nonsensical thing to say for an actual character in-universe. Is he watching the same movie we are???
Elsewhere, just as Evan discovers physical abuse on Kayleigh's body in a movie theater, when she's clearly uncomfortable and isn't enjoying the film just belts out with "You really have no clue how beautiful you are, do you?".
Like ohmygod I just want to curl up into a ball and die when I hear that.
Also, Tommy's reaction to Evan expressing any sort of interest, or even forced sexual interaction with his sister is to behave as though he's violently jealous? Like, he's an evil little freak and all, but do we really need him sneering at Evan as though he's saying "YO THAT'S MY SISTER, MY SISTERS COOTCH IS MINE".
Another character interaction I hate is Kayleigh when Evan shows up with a smile one night and she's all happy to see him and then suddenly bursts into tears and becomes an unreasonable bitch to him, when he asks questions about their experience being sexually exploited... when she knows he suffers from blackouts, repressed the whole thing, and was asking questions about it years ago!
Like what the hell? Okay, maybe from the way he phrased it it might come off as him not actually being there for her and just needling a soft spot, but come the **** on, the dude's kept his promise to come back, he's got a memory problem, and is just asking questions.
If you cared about him so much, you'd have a bit of empathy.
Finally, I just don't get why Evan was in prison when it sounds like he wasn't even convicted yet. They throw people into the skinhead rape prisons before you can even present a self defense case? Alright then.
This movie has issues, but there's a lot of neat ideas between them and it's more emotionally impactful than most of the movies I've seen in this recent stint. Ashton Kutcher pulls his own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind performance in this movie which is a big credit to him.
That said, provided this is a rewatch, I'm going to be a bit harsher this time around.
Final Verdict: [Okay]
The Butterfly Effect
Psychological Thriller / English / 2004
WHY'D I WATCH IT?
ChatGPT suggested revisiting it, which I've intended on doing for a while. It's been a few years since seeing it and I remember it being good.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
Dogs, mice, maggots.
The premise of this movie is much simpler than the previous few time travel movies, and believe it or not, I have not intentionally sought out time travel movies to binge, but it goes as follows:
Evan, played by Ashton Kutcher (and two other younger actors), grows up with a dysfunctional friend group and experiences a series of traumatic incidents, including unintentionally killing a mother and child in an act of petty vandalism, burning a dog alive, and being forced to perform sexual acts together by the father of two of three friends.
These events are initially experienced as prolonged blackouts because Evan represses the experience, however the cause is attributed to a genetic brain disorder which his father had and was later committed for.
In an effort to retain memory, he's encouraged to journal his experiences and eventually when he's older he discovers that by reading his journals he can recall the periods of blackout and even affect them with his current consciousness, changing the outcome of his past.
His various attempts to undo the different things that went wrong in his life result in finding himself in entirely new alternate realities, some with very big differences, some with very small differences, but all of them with unintended consequences.
I find this concept very appealing because I imagine, despite how much it appears to pain and damage him, that I would probably do the same. It's such a weird feeling to see established characters who are happy, healthy, and successful lose all of that and often as a result of decisions that were made downstream of a single choice you made differently.
This is the entire point of the movie of course, but I think the point is well made. Evan running to stop the mailbox explosion incentivizes Tommy to feign saving the mother and baby, the outcome of these incidents are that Tommy fancies himself divinely inspired and turns to Christ, and Lenny never develops PTSD, and Kayleigh fall for him.
It's not a very happy ending for Evan who loses his arms and ability to walk (which is a better effect than Furiosa losing her ****ing arm 20 ******* years later), but it's possibly the best outcome he could have hoped for if he wanted the best for all of his friends.
Unfortunately, his decision that confines him into a wheelchair also drives his mother to chainsmoking and by this point in life she has terminal lung cancer, so once again Evan is driven to try and fix things.
But how can you read back journals you never wrote with hands you never had?
I watched the Director's Cut of this movie and checked out all of the alternative endings and I'm inclined to say the Director's Cut ending is best, where he travels back to his birth and strangles himself in the womb.
My main issue with this ending, other than it being sad, is that... it's not super clear that this even resolves all of the traumatic incidents that he was involved in; it's suggested that Kayleigh leaves her father if he wasn't around, so that solves the CP issue, provided we're okay with him molesting Tommy instead, and we already saw the result of that timeline.
Does Evan and Kayleigh's absence somehow also remove Lenny from the picture? Tommy could still have pushed Lenny to try to bomb the mailbox, but I suppose Evan did give him the last pat on the back that convinced him to do it. And even after that, Lenny would have never left his house had Evan and Kayleigh not shown up and brought him to where Tommy was killing the dog.
So I dunno, maybe it wraps up all loose ends, but I'm not sure.
I do have to say there are some REALLY dumb moments in this movie.
For one, hypnosis is a recurring theme, just like in Donnie Darko, and it's played completely straight which irritates me because hypnosis, as far as I'm aware, is pseudo-scientific bullshit. I'm confident that nobody in the cast has ever been hypnotized or even witnessed someone be hypnotized, it just doesn't happen. It's as genuine as an exorcism.
There are also some ultra cringe moments of dialog like when Evan travels back to the basement where Kayleigh's dad wants to film them having sex and he just busts out by calling him a "****bag" and threatening him.
The response from the dad is "How are you doing this?"
Doing what? Talking? In a threatening manner? Is that beyond the capabilities of a child to call you a ****bag and say he'll castrate you if you ever touch her? What a completely nonsensical thing to say for an actual character in-universe. Is he watching the same movie we are???
Elsewhere, just as Evan discovers physical abuse on Kayleigh's body in a movie theater, when she's clearly uncomfortable and isn't enjoying the film just belts out with "You really have no clue how beautiful you are, do you?".
Like ohmygod I just want to curl up into a ball and die when I hear that.
Also, Tommy's reaction to Evan expressing any sort of interest, or even forced sexual interaction with his sister is to behave as though he's violently jealous? Like, he's an evil little freak and all, but do we really need him sneering at Evan as though he's saying "YO THAT'S MY SISTER, MY SISTERS COOTCH IS MINE".
Another character interaction I hate is Kayleigh when Evan shows up with a smile one night and she's all happy to see him and then suddenly bursts into tears and becomes an unreasonable bitch to him, when he asks questions about their experience being sexually exploited... when she knows he suffers from blackouts, repressed the whole thing, and was asking questions about it years ago!
Like what the hell? Okay, maybe from the way he phrased it it might come off as him not actually being there for her and just needling a soft spot, but come the **** on, the dude's kept his promise to come back, he's got a memory problem, and is just asking questions.
If you cared about him so much, you'd have a bit of empathy.
Finally, I just don't get why Evan was in prison when it sounds like he wasn't even convicted yet. They throw people into the skinhead rape prisons before you can even present a self defense case? Alright then.
This movie has issues, but there's a lot of neat ideas between them and it's more emotionally impactful than most of the movies I've seen in this recent stint. Ashton Kutcher pulls his own Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind performance in this movie which is a big credit to him.
That said, provided this is a rewatch, I'm going to be a bit harsher this time around.
Final Verdict: [Okay]