The Butterfly Tattoo

I enjoyed the film wholly and while it's been years since I read the original source material, a novel by Philip Pullman originally titled "The White Mercedes," I felt it was a very good adaptation. I must confess that The Butterfly Tattoo/White Mercedes was never a favourite among Pullman's stories (I have very mixed feelings about his contemporary novels in general). In this vein, my complaints with regards to the plot probably echo some of the more negative reviews, although I felt it carried well enough in the film. As a viewer with a vague memory of the original plot and setting, I sometimes found myself trying to remember how characters managed without mobile phones back in the early 90s (this is purely tangential).

Otherwise, I felt the film was one of the better films I've seen this past year. Although the actors were obviously new, they were good, and to my amateur eye, gave very sincere performances. In combination with the beautiful cinematography (I'm glad I was able to see this in widescreen as intended), I gather that was a pretty solid movie on the part of the director Phil Hawkins and the producers. I am even more impressed due to the educational nature of the film project for many of the cast and crew members.

My only major complaint that would prevent me from giving the film a higher rating pertains to the use of flashbacks, especially as employed in the second half of the film. While I have no objection to the use of flashbacks in general, and felt that they were very well employed in the retelling stories of the past, they seemed rather clichéd and unnecessary in the depiction of characters' reflection upon a relationship that had developed over merely days over the course of the film.

Overall a very good film. Congratulations to all those who worked so hard to put it together.

This movie was very well put together. The characters came across with sincerity, delivered very well by (what appear to be) new actors.

I couldn't help but imagine this sort of story coming together, whether by terrible coincidence or by a nasty twist of fate - and it was truly a sad thing to envision.

I found the pace to be as expected for this sort of film, with plenty of time to understand the characters, and a healthy dose of dialog-free scenes full of introspection and character growth. I also really enjoyed the fact that the director respected his audience and didn't spell things out for his viewers.

Now, this is not a film I would recommend to most of my guy friends, as there is very little action and it is, after all, a love story - but I know the ladies would enjoy it thoroughly.

The Butterfly Tattoo is just another teen romance; nothing special to look out for. Chris is a smart 17 year old boy working at a summer job, when he meets the easy going Jenny. They seem like the perfect couple, but a series of flashbacks prove otherwise.

The pair are both very shy and so the relationship develops slowly. Chris discovers his boss's underworld connections and the film takes a strange turn into a crime mystery. Meanwhile, Jenny is trying to put behind a previous boyfriend, Piers, who is determined to destroy her new found happiness with Chris. The actors are competent but I found the soundtrack annoying, and I was underwhelmed.

My friend brought this movie over on DVD for a movie night. I had no idea what to expect and had never heard of the novel it was based off.

I thought of butterfly as in the butterfly effect. But still i watched this movie with no expectations. As picky as i sometimes get about movies i was blown away by the impact of this movie had on me. Such a beautiful and sad story. Now even after a week of watching the movie i am still thinking about it(this doesn't happen to me very often) as in how much impact this made on my personal feelings. I watched Kick-Ass this week in the cinema, good movie but after the movie was done you still have good laugh about it that evening but the next day i didn't even think about it anymore. With butterfly tattoo it was different for me.

Also i had never heard from the actors but i also thought they had good chemistry together(the 2 main characters), but the guy who played Barry overacted sometimes which made me chuckle at times. Also Jessica Blake was eye-candy to me, such a beautiful woman. As how she acted how can a man not love her. Definitely better than kebab haha.

After watching the movie i went here to IMDb and saw that these actors are somewhat all newbies and that this movie was made with a small budget.

The fact that the 2 main characters are new actors... i was stunned by their performance. This blew me away even more and the only thing i can say about it is: BRAVO! You guys made my evening and i definitely plan on getting this movie on DVD to put it into my own collection! I hope to see more of these actors in the near future, they deserve it.

This movie is 10 times better than that major crap called: Twilight. A major thank you to the team that made this movie.

I have been moved by this movie and hope future viewers of this movie will be too. This is the impact that the movie has/had to make and they succeeded very VERY much.

I'll keep it short.

It's been a long time since I've been moved like that by a movie.

Maybe because I identified a lot with Chris, but still the story is compelling, true to the heart. The relationship between Chris and Jenny doesn't seem fake, every time I was expecting a cliché it sidestepped a little. The ending may be obvious to some, but it's not what makes a good drama.

Jessica Blake's a real treat, and I hope to see more of her in the future. I quite liked the director's work too. Lingering frames, gorgeous photography.

A well recommended movie.