Quite simply one of the best supernatural thrillers ever made

Rating: 10/10 (21 November 2015)

I feel like The Butterfly Effect wasn't taken as seriously as it could of been, or awarded the kind of praise it deserves because of pretty boy Ashton Kutcher taking on the lead role. I wouldn't blame people, because most of the time the acting choices he makes are asinine with a side of silly. This is a huge exception, however. He not only chose a mature, super interesting script, but put in a good effort and played his lead character with surprising skill. The film was marketed as a stylish, disturbing psychological thriller with paranormal undertones, which is exactly what it is. What it didn't plainly advertise was the core of the story, an extremely tragic romance that jerks at your heartstrings, making the otherworldly elements count for something more than just thrills by anchoring them in the simple, intimate story of two people dealing with hard lives, dangerous forces and unbreakable love. Plus, there's time travel, which automatically puts any film in my good books. Kutcher stars as Evan, a young college lad with an extremely troubled past that he's gone a long way to forget. Parts of it are harrowing, parts of it are confusing, but they're tied together by his childhood friend and one true love Kayleigh (Amy Smart), who by an unfortunate chain of events, ended up lost to him. He's constantly haunted by these recollections, and finds a vague, esoteric way to revisit them, through a mysterious diary he finds. This, however, provides a volatile link to the past, and entices him to attempt to sift back into the sands of time and try to prevent the suffering that him, Kayleigh and their childhood friends went through, by their own hand, and at the behest of other nasty people in their lives. Warned in flashbacks by his mentally troubled father (underrated Callum Keith Rennie) about the ramifications of his actions, he ventures forth into the great supernatural unknown all the same. In any film about time travel, the results of going back and meddling with the past always result in some shocking twists back home in the present. This film takes this idea and runs around the bases with it. Every attempt he makes to alter the mistakes and horror from his past only make things achingly worse every time he arrives back in his own when. The film also has a very bleak, unhappy tone that leaves you in an emotional gutter, but it's in that sadness and despair that I get a cinematic high a lot of the time. I guess I'm weird that way. Every valiant attempt at saving Kayleigh from her sick, abusive father (Eric Stoltz in a rare grimy turn that will make you shiver and want to run) turns sour, as does whatever he does to alleviate suffering brought on by irresponsible actions of himself and other two friends who grow up to be more messed up than him. The story is given way more care and attention than you'd expect from trailers or marketing, and remains a favourite of mine in the grisly sub genre of paranormal/psychological fare. It's also just a damn good story, focusing on character development and deeply reflecting on the actions of one man, and how they might ripple through the psychosphere and do more harm than the initially intended good. Ethan Suplee, Eldon Hanson, Cameron Bright, Kevin Durand, Melora Walters and Logan Lerman also make vivid impressions. There are two versions, a theatrical and a director's cut. Though considerably different in their conclusions, they both offer endings that will have you choking back tears for different, equally heartbreaking reasons. I prefer the theatrical one, as it's not quite as suffocating as the other, and just provides the perfect drop of hope in the sea of sadness that we've just witnessed, and just suits the film more overall.