The Butterfly Effect is quite a surreal movie at times, and can be quite confusing. It begs the question “what if you could change events, and undo the mistakes you’ve made in the past?”
Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) has suffered from unexplained blackouts throughout his life, usually during stressful situations. Afterwards, he would have little or no short term memory. When he was a child, the adults around him dismissed this, believing that he was making them up to avoid getting into trouble. At this stage, he began keeping a diary so that he remembered more about what happened to him, in an attempt to find a reason for these blackouts. He grew up with his mother, a single parent, after his father was committed to a psychiatric institution.
When he became an adult, Evan started to read his childhood diaries, and something very strange happened. When reading, he was transported back to the event he was reading about, and was able to relive the traumatic events from his past. Evan soon realised that he could use this ability to change what happened, believing this would make his life (and those around him) better. However, he hadn’t counted on the consequences of changing the past. By improving one thing, he affected and changed something else for the worse. The more determined he became to correct his past mistakes, the more new mistakes he made, which he was determined to put right, but at what cost?
Whilst being a very complicated and at times confusing plot to this film, I found it to be compelling viewing. As a viewer, you really want his next trip to the past to fix all of the problems he has created, and to bring a happy ending to the story. However, there are so many twists in the tale, it is impossible to predict how things will change when he returns to the present. It is never explained how Evan has this ability, only that he seemed to inherit this from his father, which is why he ended up in psychiatric care. At one point, Evan was on the verge of suffering the same fate. This is on the whole a very thought provoking film, although you do need to concentrate in order to keep up with the plot. I would recommend seeing this at least twice to get the full impact, and understand why events change in the way they do due to Evan’s desperation to make things right! Brilliantly written, acted and directed, this movie will keep you guessing right the way from the first scene through to its great ending. Highly recommended.
Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) has suffered from unexplained blackouts throughout his life, usually during stressful situations. Afterwards, he would have little or no short term memory. When he was a child, the adults around him dismissed this, believing that he was making them up to avoid getting into trouble. At this stage, he began keeping a diary so that he remembered more about what happened to him, in an attempt to find a reason for these blackouts. He grew up with his mother, a single parent, after his father was committed to a psychiatric institution.
When he became an adult, Evan started to read his childhood diaries, and something very strange happened. When reading, he was transported back to the event he was reading about, and was able to relive the traumatic events from his past. Evan soon realised that he could use this ability to change what happened, believing this would make his life (and those around him) better. However, he hadn’t counted on the consequences of changing the past. By improving one thing, he affected and changed something else for the worse. The more determined he became to correct his past mistakes, the more new mistakes he made, which he was determined to put right, but at what cost?
Whilst being a very complicated and at times confusing plot to this film, I found it to be compelling viewing. As a viewer, you really want his next trip to the past to fix all of the problems he has created, and to bring a happy ending to the story. However, there are so many twists in the tale, it is impossible to predict how things will change when he returns to the present. It is never explained how Evan has this ability, only that he seemed to inherit this from his father, which is why he ended up in psychiatric care. At one point, Evan was on the verge of suffering the same fate. This is on the whole a very thought provoking film, although you do need to concentrate in order to keep up with the plot. I would recommend seeing this at least twice to get the full impact, and understand why events change in the way they do due to Evan’s desperation to make things right! Brilliantly written, acted and directed, this movie will keep you guessing right the way from the first scene through to its great ending. Highly recommended.
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