The author of this review considers Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise to be among the most overrated films of the past decade or so. Consequently, I didn't expect much from the film advertised as the "British Thelma & Louise". However, Michael Winterbottom's 1995 drama, Butterfly Kiss, was a very different film from its alleged equivalent, not only in content or style but also in quality.
The plot is set in Northern England, where petrol station attendants experience unpleasant encounters with Eunice (played by Amanda Plummer), a disturbed woman who seeks an imaginary friend called "Judith" and a tape with a song nobody has heard of. One of the petrol station workers is Miriam (played by Saskia Reeves), a young and not particularly bright woman who quickly falls in love with Eunice. Miriam leaves her mother and joins Eunice on her quest for who-knows-what. Along the way, she starts noticing that Eunice is more disturbed than she initially thought – her body is covered in tattoos, piercings, and chains; the men she picks up also have a tendency to experience quick and violent deaths. Miriam is too much in love with Eunice to report her and instead simply tries to prevent her from continuing her murderous rampage. While doing so, she too gets sucked into violence.
Even those accustomed to the dark atmosphere of films like The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en may have difficulty digesting the sheer unpleasantness of this film. The setting of Northern England is depressive, the characters are not people the audience would like to meet in real life, and their actions are abhorrent. Winterbottom, however, knows how to keep the audience glued to the screen. He does so by taking an uncompromisingly honest approach to the dark subject and characters. There are no attempts to give the story additional layers – the murderous duo is presented without background stories about parental abuse or childhood traumas. The events in the film are shown through Miriam's eyes, but Winterbottom does not overplay her point of view – the protagonists are not some noble rebels trying to tear the shackles of oppressive society. For example, Eunice is not only presented as evil to the core but admits so herself. On the other hand, it is more than obvious that Miriam's fondness for Eunice owes much to her lack of common sense.
The acting in this film is superb, as expected from a British film. Amanda Plummer, best known for her brilliant cameo in Pulp Fiction, truly shines in a difficult and thankless role. Saskia Reeves (known for her role as Lady Jessica in the television remake of Dune) is equally good as the dim-witted protagonist/narrator. Unfortunately, like many potentially great films from the 1990s, Butterfly Kiss was ruined by the director's desire to add some "hip" style. Jumping from black-and-white to color cinematography is as irritating as in some of Oliver Stone's worst films. Another flaw of the film is Winterbottom's reluctance to go all the way; one scene does not play out to its logical conclusion, thus compromising the bleak integrity of Butterfly Kiss. Nonetheless, even with these flaws, this is quite an impressive film, although it takes some stomach to truly appreciate it.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on February 13th 2004)
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