Butterfly Kiss

I found "Butterfly Kiss" to be mesmerizing, horribly sad, and strangely energizing. Twisted is the right word for it, but there was more to it than two crazies running around killing people. The bond between Mi and Eu that was cemented so quickly after them having met each other is the most fascinating facet of the whole story. What Mi gives up for Eu is heartbreaking and amazing.

Seeing that so many people have gone out of their way to denigrate Butterfly Kiss, I feel constrained to weigh in on its virtues.

It is not a Hollywood entertainment, nor is it a Jane Austen prestige picture, or a politely naughty comedy for the art house crowd. It's a movie for people who are willing to risk a certain amount of emotional discomfort to gain the benefits of experiencing the world through unaccustomed perspectives. It's for those who want to learn about human beings on the margins of society, the forgotten, the pathological, the lost.

It's the sort of film that can't be appreciated without a high tolerance for unsympathetic protagonists, unreliable narrators, unintelligible motivations, and morally ambiguous conclusions.

In short, Butterfly Kiss demands an intellectual curiosity and nimbleness of mind that's not always characteristic of American audiences.

This is not to argue that it's necessarily a good film, or successful at achieving its ambitions. More than once, while watching it, I found myself wondering how much relation to real people this story might actually have. Unlike Monster, with which it has obvious parallels, Butterfly Kiss doesn't appear to be based on factual events.

The film's ability to cause me to "suspend disbelief" suffered from a touch too much Grand Guignol excess and, perhaps more damningly, writerly artifice. (For no clear reason, the protagonists are named "You"(Eunice) & "Me" (Miriam).)

But the characters kept on surprising me, which indicates, if nothing else, that there's something vital and alive about this story. By the end, I was moved to pity for these two deeply damaged women, and, perhaps more importantly, I was moved to compassion.

For that, I'd sit through an unpleasant movie any day of the week.

In England, the psychopath Eunice (Amanda Plummer) takes rides to gas stations seeking out a song and a woman called Judith that would be in love with her in the cashier of convenience stores. When she takes a ride, she usually kills the driver and leaves the car on the next gas station. When Eunice stumbles upon the naive lesbian Miriam (Saskia Reeves), she brings Eunice home to stay with her. But Eunice wants to find Judith and Miriam decides to go with her. Soon she realizes that Eunice is insane and bipolar but she follows her in her crime spree.

"Butterfly Kiss" is a disturbing but also boring movie directed by Michael Winterbottom. The weird Amanda Plummer is in the top of her career quite immediately after "Pulp Fiction" but the plot is too sick and repetitive. Maybe in 1995 this film could be more attractive, but today it is annoying. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "O Beijo da Borboleta" ("The Butterfly Kiss")

Amanda Plummer continues her tradition of oddball and perfectly drawn characters in Butterfly Kiss. In fact, her extended cameo in Pulp Fiction comes across as somewhat well balanced in contrast to her portrayal of this dented and damaged road weary dominatrix in search of a soulmate on one of Britain's anonymous northern roads.

Thelma and Louise? Well, yes, I suppose, but Butterfly Kiss has more in common with John Huston's little known masterpiece Wise Blood than with Ridley Scott's dust-borne epic of the great American Southwest. There are two women in both movies--but Little Women is not Thelma and Louise cubed.

There are some beautiful loose ends in this one. Why is Plummer's character the way she is? Where's she been? How did this come about? Adding to that is the fact that the accents are thick as steel padlocks and what you should have is a confusing mess. Instead, Plummer pulls this off with such aplomb that you don't care about any of that. What's she going to do next? That's the real question in Butterfly Kiss, and you'll hang on just to find out.

I loved this. Rent it for a couple of days because you'll want to see it a couple of times before you're done with it.

Amanda Plummer ravages through this film like a wounded hyena starving for what may be it's last meal come flood or high water. She may be Hollywoods best actress, but does she give a crap. I thinks not. Hollywood gives Oscars for cute models who show a talent for walking talking and chewing gum all at he same time. And if she can make herself ugly for a role, Hollywood seems astounded at her courage. Plummer can not only chew these little girls into so many wads of Jamaican licorice stick, but in this role as Eunice, she makes Robert DeNiro look like a neutered cub scout. This is as powerful a performance as you'll see. And on top of that her English accent is superb. There aren't any other actresses in Hollywood that could play this role. Maybe Renee Zellweger could come close. But I doubt she'd have the guts to do it. This is a very disturbing film. But a performance like this would make even the great Kim Stanley cringe.