Review The Butterfly Effect

[Jamie Swearengin]

Chaostheory 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.

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 ...

By 1965, Lorenz had pinpointed what he considered the primary source of nonlinearity in weather: advection, the horizontal and uneven wind-induced movement of heat, moisture, and other atmospheric properties. He had also concluded that the butterfly effect made it impossible to accurately forecast the weather two weeks ahead. Small errors regarding large-scale weather features, such as recording an imprecise location for a storm, would double in magnitude in about three days. Errors in observing small-scale weather features, such as imprecisely recording locations of individual clouds, could turn into errors on a larger scale within a day.

I spent 3.5 hours of my weekend listening to an audiobook about the variety of impacts that free, streaming porn has had on American and Canadian societies. Jon Ronson (Them, The Men Who Stare At Goats, This American Life) has compiled a long series of interviews and in-depth research into a podcast-style audiobook, made available (for free!!) from Audible.com.

I am not seeking in this review to create a sense of shame around porn, but rather a desire to converse about this particular following of a thread. I sincerely hope that this is the first in a series of studies in butterfly effects- the ripples that happen from a single decision or action.

Film explores how the choices and decisions we make in life impact not only our lives, but the lives of those around us. The movie seems to suggest in some ways that the decency, kindness, and moral compass of individuals is determined primarily by external factors and circumstances rather than choices made from within. Explores extremely dark subject matter such as incest, child molestation, prison rape, suicide, animal cruelty, bullying, and mental illness.

Instead of trying to work through and overcome horrific childhood trauma, characters are forever scarred by them; the removal of these traumas results in these characters being -- if not always kinder and more decent -- at least seemingly more well-adjusted.

Graphic violence, violent situations, disturbing scenes. (Warning: Some spoilers.) A powerful firecracker placed in a mailbox by tweens as a prank results, in one reality, in the death of a mother and baby; in another instance, in the lead character losing his hands, forearms. Suicide, attempted suicide. A dog is tied up in a sack, covered with lighter fluid, set on fire, and killed by a sadistic tween. A young man is beaten to death with a baseball bat. Child molestation strongly implied -- not shown, but aftermath discussed by victims years later. Prison rape implied. Lead character, serving time in prison, is on the verge of performing oral sex on two inmates before he stabs them. A young man is beaten. A lead character is shown as a tween killing another lead character with a large piece of scrap metal. A father with mental illness attacks his son in the mental hospital, choking him. Bullying -- frat boys pick on a goth punk in a bar; the goth punk retaliates by shooting a cue ball from the pool table at them, then breaking off the stick of his pool cue and threatening them. Fraternity pledges shown getting hazed. A teacher shows a mother a drawing her young son made of the boy killing his father with a knife; he is shortly after shown in the kitchen holding a large knife. A diner waitress is sexually harassed by a customer, who grabs her rear end.

Female and male nudity, full frontal. Talk of sex, and various sex acts. College student often walks in on his roommate having sex with his girlfriend. Post-coital sex talk. Tweens shown looking at pornographic magazines. Lead character brings a girl back to his dorm room; they start to engage in foreplay but stop when lead character's issues with blacking out occur once again.

Constant profanity used by adults, tweens, and teens. "F--k," "s--t," "ass," "puss out." "F--got" used by tween. In a scene with white supremacists in a prison cell, lead character uses the racial slurs "s--ck," the "N" word.

In one of the alternate realities explored by the lead character, the female lead is a drug addict and prostitute. Lead character's roommate shown smoking out of a giant bong. Tweens and adults smoke cigarettes. Woman shown dying in a hospital due to smoking. A pedophile father drinks whiskey while attempting to film his daughter and her friend in a state of undress. College drinking.

Parents need to know that The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 sci-fi thriller in which Ashton Kutcher plays a college student who can relive the past and attempt to change it for the better. The movie doesn't shy away from traumatic events and dark subject matter. There are scenes involving child molestation, prison rape, animal cruelty (a dog tied up inside a sack and set on fire and killed), accidental murder, suicide, drug addiction, mental illness, and prostitution. One the characters is beaten to death with a baseball bat. In another scene, one tween kills another tween by stabbing him with a large piece of scrap metal. While serving time in prison, the lead character, on the verge of performing oral sex on two inmates, stabs them both in the groin. It has male and female nudity, talk of sex, and sex acts; a college student tends to walk into his dorm room while his roommate is having sex with his girlfriend. Adults, tweens, and children frequently curse, including "f--k." Homophobic and racial slurs are used. This fearlessness in terms of not shying away from subject matter that is difficult and troubling sometimes overshadows the deeper points the movie is trying to make about "the butterfly effect," "chaos theory," and how events and decisions large and small can play huge roles in determining the kind of people individuals turn out to be. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.

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