The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect

Evan Treborn has lost track of time. From an early age, crucial moments of his life have disappeared, his boyhood marked by a series of terrifying events he can't remember. What remains is the memory of the broken lives around him of his childhood friends, Kayleigh, Lenny and Tommy.

Throughout his childhood, Evan was under the care of a psychologist who encouraged him to keep a journal. Now in college, he comes to realize that the notebooks he keeps are a vehicle by which he can return to the past and reclaim his memories. Determined to do something, Evan purposely travels back in time in an attempt to re-write history and spare his friends.

But every time Evan changes something in the past, he returns to the present to find that his actions have disastrous consequences.

The Butterfly Effect is a suspenseful thriller that represents chaos theory.

Topics of this film

Child abuse and bullying

First, Kayleigh's parents get divorced and she chooses to stay with her father, in spite of the abuse she suffers at his hands, because she doesn't want to leave Evan. Tommy, goes with his sister to protect her from her abusive father, he then blames Evan for the abuse he recives and is abusive to Evan and others around him, making him into a sociopath.

An example of this abuse is when at 8 years old, Evan is dropped off at his friend Kayleigh's house. Her dad has a new video camera, and he wants to make a home movie with Kayleigh and Evan. At this point, Evan blacks out, and he finds himself naked with Kayleigh in the basement of the house. The film is finished.

And an example of the bullying is when Evan, Lenny, and Kayleigh are seen walking in the forest, and they come across Tommy trying to burn Evan's dog. Evan rushes Tommy, but he gets beat with a stick, along with Kayleigh. While Lenny is trying to save the dog, Tommy threatens to kill his mom. Evan blacks out, and awakes to see the ashes of his dog.

Psychological Illness

Evan is a young man with a strange psychological disorder which makes him block out particularly disturbing memories. This seems to be hereditary, since his symptoms closely mirror those of his father.

These memory blackouts happen to him quite often since his childhood is messed up.

One day he finds the journals and each time he reads one of the traumatic events he blocked out, he experiences a flashback. However when he does something that changes, the world changes around him.

Whenever he saves one person, he completely ruins some other persons life. Each time he changes something, his brain gets more damaged as it tries to re-write his memories.

Paternal Absence

Evan has only grown with his mom, his dad, Jason, is in an insane

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