The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 American sci-fi/drama movie starring Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, and others, distributed by New Line Cinema. The Butterfly Effect is directed and written by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber.
The title most likely alludes to the butterfly in Ray Bradbury's short story "A Sound of Thunder", in which a small change triggers a large series of ripple effects. Ten years later, this concept was then coined the butterfly effect by Edward Lorenz, a term often used in chaos theory. The title may also refer to the appearance of brain scans which resemble a butterfly.
The film's tagline is: Change one thing, change everything.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Plot
2.1 The age of seven
2.2 The age of thirteen
2.3 The age of twenty
2.4 The second timeline
2.5 The third timeline
2.6 The fourth timeline
2.7 The fifth timeline
2.8 The sixth timeline
2.9 Director's cut
3 Black out timeline
4 Temporal inconsistencies
5 Production mistakes
6 Featured cast
7 Comparisons
8 Trivia
9 Awards and nominations
10 External links
Plot summary
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who suffered severe traumas as a boy (John Patrick Amedori), copes with the pain by blacking out at moments of high stress. While searching for an answer to heal his emotional wounds, he finds that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he travels back in time, and is able to essentially "redo" parts of his past. There are consequences of his choices, however, that he then propagates back to the present; his alternate futures vary from frat boy and prisoner to amputee. As he continues to do this, he realizes that even though his intentions are good, the actions he takes always have unintended consequences.
Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The age of seven
Evan Treborn at age 7 (played by Logan Lerman).In his childhood, Evan Treborn begins to experience sudden memory blackouts. His mother, Andrea, fears that he might have inherited his father's mental illness. His father, Jason Treborn, is in an asylum. Evan's doctor advises Evan to keep a daily journal to train his memory.
A first blackout happens in 1989 at school while Evan is drawing a picture of his future. The very detailed picture shows a man with a knife, standing over several bodies covered in blood. Evan's teacher is rather worried and shows the picture to Andrea. Evan doesn't remember having drawn it.
Evan experiences a second blackout at home, when Andrea accidentally sees her son holding a knife. Evan has no recollection of picking up the knife.
Another day, Evan is at his neighbor's house, playing with his best friend and first love, Kayleigh Miller. Kayleigh's father, George, asks him to be in a movie about Robin Hood. There is a third blackout — Evan finds himself standing in the cellar of Miller's house, naked. By his side stands Kayleigh, similarly undressed. It is apparent that they were forced to participate in a child pornography video.
Evan's mother talks with a doctor about Evan's strange behavior, who convinces her that Evan may be acting out because he has no father figure in his life. They arrange for Evan to visit his father as a remedy.
Evan experiences a fourth blackout when he sees his father at the clinic. The meeting starts as it should, but all of sudden there is a flash — and Evan finds himself on the floor with his father trying to strangle him. The guards burst in and, while (violently) restraining Jason, kill him.
The age of thirteen
Evan Treborn and Kayleigh Miller at age 13.Kayleigh's parents get divorced, their mother moving in with her new family. Kayleigh and her brother, Tommy, are offered a choice of which parent to stay with. Kayleigh chooses her father, in spite of the abuse she suffers at his hands, because she doesn't want to leave Evan. Tommy, a budding sociopath who delights in tormenting Evan, stays as well.
The fifth blackout happens in 1995 when Evan spends his time with the Millers and Lenny Kagan, another childhood friend. While hanging out together one afternoon, they find a dynamite stick and decide to play a prank with it. They plant it in a mailbox, light the fuse, and wait. Again a flash indicating a blackout — Evan and others are running through the forest, and Lenny is catatonic. Evidently something terrible happened, but Evan can't remember what it was and no one will tell him. Lenny is taken to the clinic in a state of deep shock.
Not long afterwards, Evan, Kayleigh and Tommy go to see the movie Se7en. Kayleigh and Evan leave when they find an early scene disturbing. Evan offers to comfort Kayleigh, and as they prepare to kiss, Tommy walks in. In a fit of jealous rage, he threateningly approaches the couple, but is tripped by an older boy, who he nearly beats to death for embarrassing him. He is subsequently taken away by police.
The sixth blackout happens when Evan and Kayleigh come to see Lenny. They convince him to go for a walk with them. Unfortunately, on the walk they meet Tommy, who has tied up Evan's dog in a burlap sack and is about to burn it alive to punish him for kissing Kayleigh. They try to stop Tommy, and then another flash — Evan finds himself on the ground, and the dog is dead. Lenny becomes completely catatonic.
The Treborns move away from town. Evan promises Kayleigh that he will "come back for her," but never keeps his promise. Kayleigh supposedly tries to move closer to Evan, but her father forbids it.
The age of twenty
In 2002, Evan is in college, majoring in psychology. When he brings a girl back to his room, she discovers his old, forgotten diaries and Evan reads about the events preceding the sixth blackout. In a flash, he returns to the past and learns that Lenny tried to free the dog, but couldn't untie the ropes. This leads him to return to his hometown to find Lenny isolated in his unchanged childhood room, finding him now antisocial and catatonic. After speaking to him he realizes the vision in his room really happened. Seeking to reproduce this strange effect, he reads an abstract about the fifth blackout and learns that while they were waiting for the dynamite to blow up, a woman with a baby came to the postbox and both were killed by the explosion. Waking from this dream, Evan finds that the cigarette burn he experienced in this memory has appeared in the current reality. Talking with his mother, he infers that his father had the same ability to travel through time.
Determined to learn more, Evan visits his childhood town to find Kayleigh. After a brief conversation, he starts asking about the video her father had forced them to do; his questions stir up very unpleasant memories, and the next day Kayleigh commits suicide. Evan extrapolates from his cigarette burn that he may be able to change the past through his diaries. He reads about the third blackout, jumps in the past and very effectively threatens George Miller if he doesn't treat his daughter with respect and discipline Tommy. The vision ends, and Evan returns to the present.
The second timeline
In this new timeline, Evan and Kayleigh are lovers. Kayleigh is a sorority girl and Evan seems to be a leader in a fraternity. Kayleigh has come to Evan's place, because in this timeline her father was good to her. However, her brother Tommy, who has recently returned from the reformatory, has become even more violent and disturbed, as his father abused him instead of Kayleigh. He traces Evan and Kayleigh and attempts to kill Evan. Evan manages to overcome Tommy and kills him in the fury. The police come just in time to apprehend Evan, who is put in prison.
Persuading his religious cellmate into helping him by producing stigmata (much the same way as the cigarette burn before, although the cellmate's reaction is not consistent with the new timeline; see #Temporal inconsistencies below), Evan manages to get hold of his diaries and returns in the sixth blackout. He gives Lenny a sharp iron shard so he can cut the dog's rope. Moreover, he succeeds in talking Tommy into releasing the dog. Suddenly, Lenny strikes Tommy with the shard, killing him. A glimpse of Lenny going catatonic is visible, then Evan wakes up.
The third timeline
Lenny is kept in the asylum and Kayleigh has become a prostitute. Evan supposes that if he could prevent the woman and the baby's death from the mailbox explosion in the fifth blackout, Lenny wouldn't have gone insane. He returns to the past and rushes to the postbox. Tommy unexpectedly follows him and brings the woman to the ground. The explosion hits only Evan.
The fourth timeline
Evan's arms are now stumps and he is in a wheelchair, as a result of the mailbox explosion. Kayleigh and Lenny are now together, and Tommy has become very religious. Evan reveals to Kayleigh how much he loves her, and Kayleigh in turn tells Evan how, when her parents split up, the only reason she chose to live with her father was because if she had gone to live with her mother she might never have seen Evan again. He also finds that in this timeline, his mother started smoking heavily after the accident, and now has cancer. First, Evan returns to the moment when he grabbed the knife at the age of 7; he searches through the kitchen, looking for something to destroy the dynamite with, but before he can do so he returns to the future again. After this failure Evan returns to the time of the third blackout in the Millers' basement, planning to destroy the stick of dynamite so it can never be planted in the mailbox. He lights it to threaten George Miller as before, but he drops it and Kayleigh picks it up. She is killed in the explosion.
The fifth timeline
Now Evan is kept in a mental institution for killing Kayleigh. Moreover, he finds out that in this timeline, his diaries never existed. However, by talking to the same doctor, he does discover that his father traveled through time by using an old photo album. He makes his last attempt to fix everything, using an old film about the first acquaintance with Kayleigh. Upon his meeting Kayleigh, Evan now threatens to kill her family unless she stays away from him to prevent their becoming friends.
The sixth timeline
At last, everything is fine. Nothing stops Tommy and Kayleigh from moving to their mother's house, and they are raised properly. Tommy (once again) becomes quite religious. Lenny is Evan's roommate, as they study in the university. In order to save Kayleigh and the rest, Evan had to sacrifice her friendship. Evan burns all his diaries and films, as he is content enough with the present and recognizes the instability and delicate nature of the timeline. In the very end of the film, Evan passes by Kayleigh on a busy downtown street. They notice each other and Kayleigh stops, but by the time Evan turns to look, she has already begun walking again. Although it is obviously painful, Evan realizes he must not follow her. The look on his face is grim and pale. A dejected but selfless Evan gulps and keeps walking. Kayleigh has been saved.
Director's cut
The Director's cut of the movie adds some amount of depth to the storyline, as well as providing a bit more detailed look at Evan's ability. Other than small extensions here and there, the added scenes include Evan's mother telling him about her stillbirths as well as a scene during the prison section of the movie where the prison guards are shown working with the particular prison gang that Evan comes into contact with. This results in the gang getting a hold of numerous keys, allowing them to break into Evan's cell at night, with the implication being that they follow through with their previous threats and rape him.
The ending of the film in the Director's cut differs at the fifth timeline. In this version, Evan finds a film of his mother giving birth. He goes "into" the video, and kills himself in the womb by strangling himself with his umbilical cord, so that he will not interfere in anyone else's life again. This results in a stillbirth, and implies that the other stillbirths his mother experienced were similar children like him who grew up and created alternate timelines as well, and eventually came to the same conclusion that Evan did. Writer/directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber state in the film commentary that this was their original intention for the finale, as it emphasized Evan's choice of self-sacrifice for those he loves more than the original theatrical version. After Evan kills himself the other people whose lives were originally mutilated by grief are briefly shown to be living their lives a bit happier.
Black out timeline
Every time Evan changes his past he goes to the exact moments when he blacked out. This indicates that his blackouts were due to his older self possessing his body.
Temporal inconsistencies
By producing stigmata when traveling back to his grade school years and impaling his hands in order to convince his cellmate, Carlos, that "Jesus is in my dreams", Evan has created an entirely new timeline. In this timeline, he would have arrived in prison with the scars and Evan would have been unable to demonstrate to Carlos that the scars were not there beforehand. Carlos could therefore not logically have been surprised by the scars' appearance. This would suggest that Evan's ability to travel back in time and still maintain physical atributes of prior timelines (for example, the fact that his memories build up rather than being recreated) allow him to affect other people, like Carlos and his memories.
Some of Evan's trips do not alter the timeline but instead seem to be have already been incorporated into his original life in a predestination paradox. For example, in his second blackout, his traveling back and looking for a weapon, which is caught out of context by his mother when she sees him suddenly holding a knife in the kitchen, does not alter the timeline because his original timeline already has this change in it. Another example can be seen in his fourth blackout when he visits his dad in the psychiatric institution. His dad warns him that his traveling back is recklessly dangerous because of the changes it could incur, however, this change was also already in Evan's original timeline. This would allow us to conclude that the "original" timeline was a "perfect" timeline, because it is the only timeline in which Evan can come by the knowledge of his ability, and thus it is the only possible timeline which could initiate the story.
Following each change to the timeline, Evan assimilates the memories associated with it despite never having "experienced" the events detailed in his memories, yet he only seems to have gained the same bits an pieces as are shown to the audience, and is ignorant of many facets of the new timeline, despite having "experienced" them in the new version of the timeline.
Production mistakes
When Evan is in the psychologist's office as a teenager under hypnosis, the light in the background is on, then it jumps to a different camera angle, then it jumps back to the previous shot and the light is off then all of a sudden is turned on. This is described in the commentary for the director's cut as a 'happy accident.'
When Evan is sitting with prostitute Kayleigh in the restaurant, Kayleigh looks through his wallet then sets it on the table. In the next shot, the wallet has moved across the table.
Featured cast
Actor Role
John Patrick Amedori Evan Treborn at 13
Cameron Bright Tommy Miller at 7
Nathaniel DeVeaux Dr. Redfield
Lorena Gale Mrs. Boswell
Irene Gorovaia Kayleigh Miller at 13
Elden Henson Lenny Kagan
Jesse James Tommy Miller at 13
Jake Kaese Lenny Kagan at 7
Ashton Kutcher Evan Treborn
Logan Lerman Evan Treborn at 7
Callum Keith Rennie Jason Treborn
Kevin Schmidt Lenny at 13 (as Kevin G. Schmidt)
William Lee Scott Tommy Miller
Amy Smart Kayleigh Miller
Eric Stoltz George Miller
Ethan Suplee Thumper
Melora Walters Andrea Treborn
Sarah Widdows Kayleigh Miller at 7
Comparisons
Ashton Kutcher and others have stated that this movie is a combination of two classics: Back to the Future (time travel elements) and Jacob's Ladder (mind vs. reality).
This is among many other recent movies such as The Matrix, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, Final Destination, Groundhog Day, American Beauty, Minority Report and I ♥ Huckabees, with an existentialist theme.
In addition, the plot is somewhat similar to that of the series Frequency, Run Lola Run, Mr. Destiny, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Tapestry", The Fairly OddParents episode "Father Time", and a Danny Phantom episode "Masters of All Time" and any number of other films and television series episodes on the theme of "remaking" one's own life, or at least visiting a timeline in which one had made one critically different choice. A similar theme involves timelines in which, as in It's A Wonderful Life, one doesn't exist at all.
Trivia
A recording of the flashback where Evan says,"Wrong answer fuckbag!" is used for a song written by the Emocore band Stalin's War.
Evan's given name, Evan Treborn, is a play on the phrase event reborn.
Evan's original name was to be "Chris Treborn" (Christ Reborn).
Awards and nominations
2005 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (Saturn Awards)
Nominated — Best Science Fiction Film
2004 Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film
Won — Pegasus Audience Award — Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
2004 Teen Choice Awards
Nominated — Choice Movie: Thriller