Case for the Butterfly Effect

Although most people seemed to have no problems with my Movies of the Decade, there seemed to be one general disagreement with it, which was having The Butterfly Effect at #2. Let me first say, if there is only ONE problem in FIFTY films, I think I did a pretty good job!

Okay, preface here. What I am going to argue will severely ruin the film if you haven't seen it yet. So, exit now if you don't want to know major elements of the movie.

First, the Ashton Kutcher argument. Ashton Kutcher is an entertainer, he isn't necessarily the greatest actor. However, if there is a film that he does actually act in, it's The Butterfly Effect. He doesn't rely on wit, humor, or sex to get his laughs. In fact, there aren't laughs in the movie. He grew his hair out to portray the kind-of-crazy-college-student on the brink of going completely nuts. Was he the best fit? Probably not. But, did he do the job? Definitely. I don't think you can discredit a film just because it has a certain actor (See: Gone in 60 Seconds for you Nicholas Cage haters).

Second, the critics argument. I will admit, its tough to argue against critics and aggregators, such as Rotten Tomatoes. However, other movies (The Air I Breathe, Boondock Saints) are highly underrated, while other not-so-good movies (Crank) are very overrated. Rotten Tomatoes is good, but not perfect. A lot of critics point to Kutcher as a reason for failure. I've already argued against this. Other reviews say it's too dark. Terrible argument, period. Even others point to its unbelievability. Almost every movie is unbelievable, another terrible argument.

Third, the style. Nonlinear narratives are my favorite style. Other movies, such as The Air I Breathe, Elephant, Slumdog Millionaire, City of God, The Prestige, Crash, Eternal Sunshine, (500) Days of Summer, Amores Perros, and Memento (6 of my top 10) made my list. This movie does it differently than say, Crash. Crash takes multiple story lines and runs them next to each other until they eventually all intersect. Butterfly Effect was more like (500) Days of Summer, where they kept jumping back and forth from the past to the present to the past and back to the future.

What separated Butterfly Effect from the others was its psychological component. I'm also a sucker for psychological movies (Donnie Darko, A Beautiful Mind, Unbreakable, The Prestige, Eternal Sunshine, and Memento). Butterfly Effect hid its cards towards the beginning of the movie. It showed Evan growing up and blacking out huge events to his life and the story. It built the suspense early, and let you try to guess what had happened. Later, he was able to go back to see these events and try to change them.

This brings me to my final point, which was the concept of the movie. This is definitely the most intriguing part of the film. This actually ended up being a love story behind a psychological thriller. Evan (Ashton Kutcher) was trying to change the past in order to better the future of his love, Kayleigh (Amy Smart). In doing so, even the littlest changes would severely alter the future. For instance, he tried to keep Kayleigh from being molested by her father at a young age, which made her father turn all of his attention to Kayleigh's brother, Tommy. When the story went back to the future, Tommy was now the psychotic one, that eventually forces Evan to go to prison. At another point, Evan saves his neighbors from a terrible prank gone wrong, but it leads to losing both of his arms. When the story fast forwards, Kayleigh is in love with someone else, Tommy is very religious, and Evan's mom has cancer from chain smoking resulting from Evan's injuries. He has to try to set it right again.

After multiple failures to change the past and alter the future, Evan realizes that there isn't a way to please everyone. The best line that sums up the movie, is where Evan's dad says "You can't play God son." Eventually Evan realizes there isn't hope for helping everyone. He realizes the best thing to do, and his last thing he can do, is to travel back in time and scare Kayleigh away. This will force Kayleigh away from her abusive dad and to her loving mother. With Kayleigh and Tommy out of Evan's life forever, they can all live happy lives. Evan ends up sacrificing what he cares for so the others can have their perfect lives. For those that don't like its unrealistic story line, this is the drive home point, not that people can change their pasts by reading a journal.

In conclusion, obviously, I don't expect everyone to jump on the bandwagon and hail this movie like I do, but I hope that you can see where I'm at least coming from. It's a thrilling movie that takes minor twists and turns that greatly effect the future drastically. Every character meet's his or her demise at some point. I don't think there is a movie that does anything close to this. It truly is unique.