Story Recapped here.
Today I'm going to explain a Sci-fi drama film called The Butterfly Effect.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
Evan Treborn has been suffering from blackouts as a child.
He remembers nothing during those times, but it often occurs during the most significant
moments of his childhood.
Some of these incidents happened when he spent time with his best friends Lenny, Kayleigh,
and her brother Tommy.
His mother Andrea first noticed the blackouts when Evan was just seven years old.
While Andrea was dropping Evan off at school, his teacher, Mrs Boswell, asked her to stay
behind for a moment to discuss an artwork drawn by Evan.
While other children drew wholesome pictures, Evan's work depicted a man holding a bloody
knife in his hand standing close to two lifeless bodies of men on the ground.
Evan doesn't remember creating the gruesome drawing, so his mother decided to take him
to a psychiatric hospital for a checkup.
As they await Evan's neurological exam results, Andrea expresses her concern to the doctor
that Evan might have inherited an illness from his father.
The doctor suggests that Evan should start keeping a journal to help him with his memory
loss.
Evan takes the doctor's advice and starts writing down the things he is doing for the
day.
In the first entry of his journal, he notes that he will be meeting up with Kayleigh and
Tommy for a playdate at their place.
He also mentions that this would be the first time he will meet their father, Mr Miller,
face to face.
While preparing to leave, Andrea becomes witness to one of Evan's blackouts.
She sees Evan in the kitchen holding a large knife with a blank stare in his eyes.
When he asks the boy about the utensil, he drops it on the floor and tells her that he
can't remember.
When they arrive at the Millers, Kayleigh tells him that their dad is shooting a movie
with his new camera.
Mr Miller tells Evan that he is going to be the star of the flick.
When Tommy complains about getting the starring role, his father snaps at him.
Mr Miller asks Evan to promise not to tell anyone else about the movie.
After agreeing to keep Mr Miller's secret, he blacks out and regains consciousness in
the basement.
Evan finds himself in front of Mr Miller's camera with his clothes on the floor.
When Evan asked Mr Miller how he got there, the man asks him to do what he's told.
He notices Kayleigh beside him, but she remains silent even when he asks her what's happening.
Meanwhile, Tommy angrily twists the neck of a doll while watching them from the stairs.
Andrea goes back to the doctor to ask about the results of Evan's tests.
The doctor confirmed that the tests didn't show any physical damage to his brain.
He asserted that stress might be causing the blackouts and suggested that it could be due
to difficulties coping with his father's absence.
Andrea remembered that Evan had been asking to see his father for a while.
The doctor tells her that a controlled meeting between the two could help alleviate Evan's
stress.
Evan writes about the meeting with his father, Jason, in his journal on their way to the
hospital.
He indicates that he is aware of his father's mental illness, but the boy is still hoping
that he gets to call him "dad."
The doctor tells him that his father might be a little sleepy because of the medication.
When his dad arrives in the designated meeting room, he immediately assures Evan that it's
safe to be with him.
Jason asks the boy if he had seen pictures of him.
Evan starts telling his father about their similar features, but he suddenly experiences
a blackout.
When he woke up, his father was strangling him, saying, "I love you."
The guards rush in to the room to stop him.
During the struggle, a guard hits Jason in the head with a baton.
Jason falls to the floor, bleeding and lifeless.
Six years after his father's death, Evan and his friends have now taken up smoking and
other questionable habits.
One day, while hanging out at the Miller's, the group decides to blow up something with
a stick of dynamite to alleviate their boredom.
Tommy compels Lenny into blowing up a mailbox.
Lenny refuses, fearing that the explosive might blow up too soon.
Evan steps in and stuffs the fuse into a lit cigarette.
He tells Lenny that the fuse should now last at least two minutes before the dynamite explodes.
Lenny puts the dynamite into the mailbox and runs back to his friends.
Evan covers Kayleigh's ears while waiting for the mailbox to blow up, but he blacks
out before the explosion.
When Evan regains consciousness, they are already running deep into the woods.
He and Tommy have been carrying Lenny, who appears to be awake but unresponsive.
While Lenny is loaded into an ambulance, Andrea asks Evan what happened.
Evan insists that he blacked out and can't remember anything.
When Andrea tells him that he can't use his condition as an excuse, he tears up, convincing
his mother that he is telling the truth.
Sitting alone in the attic, Evan decides to write down the incident in his journal.
His pencil breaks mid-sentence, so he starts looking for something else he could use.
During his search, he sees a box labelled with his father's name.
Inside, he finds a few pictures, and an envelope marked "Dad's death certificate."
He looks at the paper and discovers that his grandfather, Edward, was committed at the
Bellevue Institute.
He concludes that his grandfather also had a mental illness.
Evan has agreed to undergo hypnosis to remember the incident that leads to Lenny's catatonic
state.
He remembers covering Kayleigh's ears to protect her.
Evan recalls a car arriving but struggles to tell the doctor anything else.
The doctor tries to convince Evan that he's not in danger, but the boy remains agitated
and starts shaking violently.
As his nose starts bleeding, the doctor decides to stop the session.
Evan wakes up, not remembering anything about the hypnosis.
Later on, Andrea drops off Evan at the cinema to meet up with Kayleigh and Tommy.
When Evan asks his friends what happened to the mailbox, Tommy shoves him violently to
the wall and tells him not to mention the incident again.
The three friends go inside the cinema to watch a movie, but Kayleigh leaves in the
middle of the flick.
Evan follows her and tries to console her, but she winces in pain after he touches her
shoulder.
Evan sees the large bruise on her arm and finds out that her dad had beaten her up.
He tells her that she doesn't deserve that beating and kisses her.
Tommy sees them kissing and yells at them.
As he walks over to them, he is tripped by an older kid, causing him to fall on the floor.
Tommy starts beating up the kid who tripped him, but he stares angrily at Evan and Kayleigh
while doing it.
Kayleigh and Evan look on in shock as Tommy is being dragged away by the guards.
While washing dishes in the kitchen, Andrea hears a news story about a dynamite explosion
resulting in a tragedy.
The news indicated that there are still no suspects connected to the blast.
Andrea later tells Evan that they will be leaving town soon.
Kayleigh and Evan find out that Lenny is now at home, so they visit him.
As the three kids take a trip and walk out in the woods, they notice a cloud of smoke
coming from a yard.
They quickly run to the source and see that Tommy has put Evan's dog in a sack and is
trying to light it up on fire.
Tommy quickly grabs a plank and tries to hit Evan with it.
Evan manages to dodge it, but Kayleigh gets struck in the head.
Tommy beats up Evan and tries to light up the dog on fire again.
Evan gets up and charges Tommy, but he blacks out before reaching him.
He wakes up to see his dog burned to cinders.
As Evan and his mom were about to leave town, Kayleigh runs to their house, hoping to see
him one last time.
Knowing that they won't be able to talk, Evan writes her a note, saying he'll come back
for her.
Evan, now aged 20, has decided to study psychology in college.
One night, he asks his roommate Thumper to celebrate with him because he hasn't experienced
a blackout in seven years.
They go to the bar for a few drinks and a game of pool, but things turn sour when frat
boys start making fun of Thumper.
After leaving the bar, Evan goes back to his dorm room with his date.
She sits on the bed and notices Evan's journal as he grabs her a drink.
She convinces Evan to read a few sentences from the journal.
As he reads, he starts remembering the incidents described in his notes.
He notices his surroundings shake as he continues to read.
Evan soon finds himself reliving the time when he tried to stop Tommy from lighting
up his dog on fire.
Lenny was desperately trying to open up the sack to free the dog, but he stops when Tommy
threatened to kill his mother in her sleep.
Tommy castigates Evan for kissing Kayleigh as he lights up the dog on fire.
Evan wakes up as soon as Tommy puts the fire against the sack.
His date tells he was just dreaming, but he says that it felt very real.
Still bothered by the experience, he visits Lenny to ask him what happened that day.
Lenny repeats Tommy's threat about killing his mother.
Evan goes back to his dorm, convinced that the incident he saw in his dream happened.
He reads from his notes again and goes back to the time when they were blowing up the
mailbox.
He is stunned by the sudden shift in his surroundings and drops a lit cigarette on his shirt.
As they observe a car arriving at the house, Evan feels the cigarette burning through his
shirt and onto his skin, leaving a burn mark.
The owner of the house gets out of the car carrying her baby.
Kayleigh breathes a sigh of relief as they see the woman walk toward her home, but relief
turned quickly into dread when they see the lady walk back to the mailbox, still carrying
her baby.
They witness the dynamite explode as soon as the lady opens the box.
Shocked by what he saw, Lenny stands frozen, staring at the distance while the three others
run away.
Tommy and Evan come back for Lenny and carry him away on their shoulders.
When Evan wakes up, he checks his tummy and sees the scar left by the cigarette burn.
Evan later goes out for dinner with his mother, and he starts asking her about his dad.
Andrea tells him that Jason had a good memory.
She further reveals that Jason had claimed to have found a way to remember his past when
he was the same age as Evan.
Andrea tries to tell Evan that Jason claimed to have another ability but failed to say
what it was.
She noted that his father was already too sick by that time.
After leaving the restaurant, Evan asks Andrea again about Jason's ability.
Andrea changes the subject by convincing Evan to try palm reading for fun.
As soon as the palm reading starts, the psychic tells Evan that he has no lifeline.
She further asserted that Evan has no soul and was not meant to exist.
Andrea later tells Evan that she had miscarried twice before he was born.
She considered Evan her miracle baby because she didn't have any problem giving birth to
him.
Back in the dorm, Evan goes through his journals again.
While reading through the part when Mr Miller was filming him and Kayleigh, Thumper stops
him, arguing that there could be a good reason he repressed those memories.
Evan goes back to his hometown to see Kayleigh, who now works at a diner.
After getting reacquainted, Evan starts telling her that he has been recovering some of his
lost memories.
When he asks her about the time Mr Miller was filming them, Kayleigh got mad at him
for bringing it up.
Evan tells her that she shouldn't hate herself for anything wrong that might have happened
that time, but Kayleigh gets even more upset.
Kayleigh tells Evan that talking about that incident doesn't make her feel any better.
As she walks away, she turns back to Evan and asks him why he didn't keep in touch with
her if he thought she was so wonderful.
When Evan gets back to the dorm, he hears an angry voice message from Tommy, telling
him that Kayleigh had taken her own life the night they met.
He goes to the funeral, but he only watches it from a distance.
After everyone had left, he leaves behind some flowers and the old note containing his
promise to return for Kayleigh.
Evan starts reading from his journals again to test his theory that his flashbacks really
allow him to change the past.
After reading a few phrases from his notes, he goes back to the moment when Mr Miller
invited him to the basement to shoot a movie.
As Mr Miller prepares the camera, he tells the children that they will be kissing in
the film, so he instructs them to take their clothes off.
Evan tells Kayleigh to cover her ears and starts berating Mr Miller for his depravity.
He warns Mr Miller that his activities would eventually lead to Kayleigh's suicide and
threatens to castrate him if he doesn't stop.
When Evan wakes up, he finds himself in a girl's dorm room, and he immediately experiences
flashes of memories that seem to have happened after he confronted Mr Miller.
Kayleigh wakes up beside him and notices that his nose is bleeding.
After getting cleaned up, he and Kayleigh walk together to go to class.
When Evan asked about Mr Miller's camera, Kayleigh told him that her dad got rid of
it the same day he got it.
While leaving his message for his mom on the phone, he sees Thumper in the hallway.
When he asks him for the time, he finds out that Thumper isn't very fond of him.
He later learns that he is now friends with the frat boys who bullied Thumper at the bar.
Evan sets up a romantic evening with Kayleigh, but the evening was spoiled when he hears
that someone has trashed his car.
He and Kayleigh notice a dog collar hanging from the rearview mirror, and they both figure
out that it was Tommy who caused the damage.
The couple goes back to Evan's dorm to find something he could use for self-defense, but
all he could see was a pepper spray.
Kayleigh assures Evan that Tommy wouldn't hurt him.
Evan reminds her that Tommy killed his dog.
He argues that Tommy's bad behavior couldn't just be a result of a bad upbringing because
Kayleigh turned out fine.
Kayleigh stressed that her father never harmed her and asserted that Mr Miller had taken
out all of his anger on Tommy.
Evan decides to stay with Kayleigh in her room, but Tommy confronts them as they walk
to the dorm.
Tommy starts beating up Evan with a bat.
Evan manages to incapacitate Tommy with a pepper spray and beats him while he's down.
After punching Tommy a few times, he grabs the bat and hits him in the head, killing
him instantly.
Evan is sent to prison for killing Tommy.
After entering his jail cell, he immediately asks his cellmate, Carlos, for protection.
Carlos, who is quite religious, refuses and advises Evan to close his eyes and go somewhere
else in his mind when other prisoners start abusing him.
Andrea pays Evan a visit to tell him about the case and bring him his journals.
She was only able to bring two books as the others are still kept in storage.
Before Evan could even take his books to his cell, other inmates take them from him.
Evan was able to rip out a few pages from the books before the other prisoners could
take them away.
He uses the pages he kept to go back in time to convince Carlos to help him get the rest
of his journals back.
Evan flashes back to the day when he drew the picture of a man holding a knife.
He impales both his hands on pointed paper holders to convince Carlos that he is experiencing
stigmata.
When Evan wakes up, Carlos sees the scars and decides to help him.
Evan goes to the inmates' cell that took his journals and asked them to let him join their
gang.
He agrees to pleasure them as part of the initiation, but as soon as he kneels, he stabs
them both.
Carlos comes in to hold down the gate of the cell as Evan reads from his journal.
He soon returns to the moment when Tommy was about to burn his dog.
He gives Lenny a sharp piece of metal and persuades him to cut the rope when he sees
the dog in the sack.
When they reach the yard, Evan confronts Tommy and convinces him to let the dog go.
Lenny, however, walks toward Tommy while he's releasing the dog and stabs him with the metal
shard.
Evan wakes up back in his dorm room and starts convulsing as new memories flash into his
head.
He is taken to the hospital and undergoes some tests.
As the doctor explains the results to Andrea, Evan interrupts him and asserts that he had
inserted 40 years worth of memory in his brain in one year.
He steals a security key from the doctor and goes to see Lenny in his room.
Lenny just stares into space as Evan tries to talk to him.
As Evan was about to leave, Lenny asks him if he knew that something would happen when
he handed him the metal shard.
When Evan said yes, Lenny tells him that he should be the one locked up in the psych ward.
Evan decides to revisit the moment when he met with his dad in the hospital.
During the meeting, he tries to ask his father to tell him how he could make things right.
His father tells him that it's impossible because he can't change people without destroying
a part of their identity.
Evan insists on using his abilities to make things better, so Jason lunges at the boy
and strangles him.
Upon his return from the flashback, Evan goes back to his hometown to find Kayleigh.
He tries to look for her at the diner but finds out that she never worked there.
Evan soon learns that she is now working as a prostitute.
He visits her at the motel, takes her to the diner, and tells her about his ability.
Kayleigh refuses to believe him, so he goes back to his dorm and reads from his journal
again.
This time, Evan uses his ability to stop the woman from opening the mailbox.
He runs toward the house and tells the lady to stay away from the mailbox.
Frustrated by Evan's decision to warn the lady, Tommy shields the woman and her baby
from the blast so he would come out as a hero.
Evan, who is standing next to the mailbox, gets blown away by the explosion.
Evan returns to his dorm room and sees Lenny on the next bed instead of Thumper.
As soon as Evan realizes that he had lost his limbs, he starts convulsing from the surge
of new memories flashing into his mind.
In those flashes, Evan finds out that Kayleigh and Lenny have become lovers.
He later meets Tommy, who is now a member of a religious group.
While spending some time alone with Kayleigh, he asks her whether they could've been together
as a couple.
Kayleigh tells him that he was the first person he ever cared about.
She went on to say that Evan was the reason she stayed with her dad instead of her mom,
even though she didn't like being with her father.
Evan tells her that nobody could love her the way that he does.
Feeling depressed from losing Kayleigh to Lenny, Evan tries to drown himself in the
bathtub.
Tommy saves him and tells him not to give up hope.
Tommy takes Evan to the hospital to see Andrea, who is now suffering from lung cancer.
Evan remembers from the flashes that his mom had started chain-smoking after he lost his
limbs.
He suddenly gets the idea to go back in time and destroy the dynamite so he doesn't get
blown up.
Evan fails in his first attempt to destroy the dynamite and tries again.
In his second attempt, he goes back to the moment when Mr Miller was preparing to shoot
a movie with them in the basement.
When he finds the dynamite, he lights it up near the fireplace.
Mr Miller quickly runs toward him and smacks the explosive out of his hand.
It rolls toward Kayleigh, and she picks it up.
The dynamite explodes in her hand, and Evan ends up in a psych ward upon his return.
Eager to try again, Evan goes to the doctor's office to ask for his journals.
The doctor tells him that the journals never existed.
He pointed out that Evan was just like his father, who kept asking him for a photo album
that he never had.
When Andrea comes for a visit, he asks her about the home movies he used to watch and
tells her that he'd like to see them again.
Once it went dark, Evan quickly snuck into the doctor's office and started writing a
goodbye note.
He watches a home movie of his pregnant mom at the hospital before she gives birth to
him.
He goes back to that moment when he was still in the womb.
On her way to the delivery room, Andrea suddenly feels a sharp pain in her womb.
As the doctors observe the baby's condition on the ultrasound, they find out that the
umbilical cord is choking him.
Andrea tells the doctor to save the baby, but they eventually lose him.
Evan’s friends lived very peaceful lives in his absence.
Kayleigh and Tommy went to live with their mother and avoided getting abused by their
father.
Andrea had remarried and had another baby.
Lenny had never suffered from any trauma.
Tommy becomes a valedictorian of his class, and Kayleigh gets married.