Review of the 2004 film 'The Butterfly Effect'

The butterfly effect, also known as chaos theory, states that a small event (such as a butterfly flapping its wings) has knock on effects that can have very large-scale consequences. As a child, Evan has blackouts, with large hunks of time he cannot remember. A psychologist suggests that he should keep a journal, in order to jog his memory about the events. Later in his life, he re-reads the journals and finds that he can remember the lost sections of his memory. Soon afterwards he finds that he can change what happens.

Conceptually, this film is very interesting. By changing very small events from his past, Evan has huge effects on his 'present'. His future keeps changing, he completely alters the outlook for himself and his closest friends. Sometimes things work out better in some ways, but usually they end up worse in others. By trying to 'fix' one aspect of his present, he 'breaks' another.

In execution, this isn't a bad film; it is quite well acted, especially by the younger actors. I have often said that American children lose their ability to act once they hit puberty, and the adult (or rather late teenage) actors seem to prove this somewhat, although the leading lady, Kayleigh (Amy Smart) does a very good job of portraying her various different possible futures throughout the course of the film. The younger self of Evan and Tommy were definitely better than than their adult counterparts, however. The special effects used are understated but very effective, when they are used; more fancy cinematography than computer generated effects, but there are some clever moments that meant that the style of filming carried the plot well.

The reasons I didn't like this film were more to do with the bleakness of the whole thing. There are odd moments of romance and joy, but they are all quickly overshadowed by depression and destruction. Evan begins to realise that there is no way to make all of his friends have a happy ending, from the start that he has. It isn't one of those sad films that you enjoy because of the deep emotion, and there isn't enough action to make this into one of the bleak but dramatic ripping yarns. The film was impossible to 'enjoy', because it was so dark, and it wasn't quite good enough to forgive this, and right through the end it was incredibly bleak.

Perhaps the reason that I didn't enjoy this film was because of the time I watched it (late night on boxing day)... but I didn't particularly like it, and I didn't find it as gripping or interesting as the concept of the plot would have suggested. It was a very clever film, and thus it's not a film I would encourage people to universally dismiss. It wasn't a bad film, but as a subjective viewer, I didn't enjoy it. If you tend not to like dark, 'think' films, then I would recommend you find something less depressing to spend your time on.