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Preview by: Jack Foley
DARE we suggest it, but 2004 could be a very good year for Ashton
Kutcher, for the star of throwaway films such as Just
Married and Dude Where’s My Car?, who remains best known
for being Demi Moore’s younger other half, is about to get
serious.
Aside from a role in M Night Shyamalan’s upcoming The Village,
he also appears (and executive produces) the supernatural psychological
thriller, The Butterfly Effect, which is one of the more prominent
films going into this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Directed by Eric Bress and J Mackye Gruber, the film finds Kutcher
as a young man (Evan Treborn) struggling to get over harmful memories
from his childhood, who discovers a technique that allows him
to travel back in time and occupy his childhood body, changing
his history forever.
However, by doing so, he also discovers that every change he
makes somehow alters his future.
The publicity on the Sundance website states that ‘there
is something very fresh and inventive about the screenplay for
The Butterfly Effect, an elaborately conceived, enacted, and directed
independent feature by the screenwriting/directing team of Eric
Bress and J. Mackye Gruber’.
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"It manages - and this isn't easy - to create the necessary
suspension of disbelief that blending realism, the supernatural,
a psychological thriller, and interpersonal drama requires.
"But it also takes a somewhat weary idea - that events in
the past affect the course of those in the present and future
- and shapes a compelling, entertaining, and surprisingly unpredictable
story that is gripping and engaging from start to finish."
Kutcher, himself, relished the opportunity to pursue other avenues
in his career, having made the switch from the US TV hit, ‘That
70s Show’ to movies, but finding himself typecast in comedies.
He maintains: "I’ve always been interested in playing
real people and doing dramatic roles. I just haven’t had
the opportunity until now."
So, to prepare for his role, Kutcher studied psychology, particularly
cases of people with disassociation disorder, which causes them
to black out traumatic memories.
"I was interested in trying to learn what causes people
to go into these remissive states, where they try to hide their
feelings in order to avoid having to confront them, which is similar
to what Evan does," says the actor.
As for the rest of the film itself, co-writer/director, J. Mackye
Gruber feels that the story plugs in to a universal desire among
human beings.
"Everybody, whether they admit it or not, has a day in their
life that they would love to live over… And this movie poses
some interesting questions about the effects of our actions –
in both the past and the present."
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