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Director: co-directed and co-produced by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruba.
Cinema: Rainbow town
Running time: 119 minutes
Type of film: Exploration of pseudo-scientific
principle;
Age restriction: Adults only
Given what has happened in the years since this film was made (nine years ago), it is particularly significant that its leading actor is Ashton Kutcher.
Born 30 years ago in America’s rural, mid-west corn belt, this actor has survived what is usually a soul-destroying experience and is only now returning to his former status as “movie star”.
About five years ago – still virtually unrecognised for the great potential of his talent – he crossed paths with J-Lo, Jennifer Lopez. Ten years Kutcher’s senior was it all publicity stunt? It came as a great surprise and shock to millions of movie fans who avidly follow these things, when they announced their engagement.
It was not to be: Virtually en route to the altar, our Ashton was dumped – as many had predicted would happen.
With the film “The Butterfly Effect” we see the pre-J-Lo Ashton and can calmly contemplate and measure who this actor was in relation to the super-star he has become.
In their advertising, the makers of this film have gone to great lengths to prick the interest and curiosity of a branch of science, which is ringing bells for what they call the “Chaos Theory”.
Flying in the face of orthodox Christianity, this theory holds that there are no free agents in the universe; that we are all the end-products of happenings aeons ago.
The film is made up entirely some will say confusingly – of four distinct time spans in the lives of the three boys and one girl who grow up in the course of the film.
This makes for a highly complicated film and can only be recommended to those viewers who are prepared to abandon their cell-phones and pay attention.
Question: Did the young Evan (Kutcher) kill Kaylie Miller?
Were all the diaries he compiled through the years simply a figment of his imagination?
Was his friend’s father indeed a paedophile?
Was the dog burned to death tied up in the sack?
At the end, did the two lovers pass each other innocently on the streets of New York?
I’d love to hear from you on this.