百年50部英文燒腦電影賞析:[43]The Butterfly Effect 蝴蝶效應(yīng)

In the year 2002, Evan Treborn（Ashton Kutcher）frequently suffers from blackouts, often at moments of high stress. As a young child（played by Logan Lerman）and adolescent（played by John Patrick Amedori）, Evan suffered many severe sexual abuse and psychological traumas. These traumas include being forced to take part in child pornography, being strangled by his mentally-ill father, causing an accident with dynamite with his friends, and seeing his dog being burned by his friend. Seven years later, while “entertaining” a girl in his dorm room, he realizes that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he can travel back in time, and is able to “redo” parts of his past. His time traveling episodes account for the frequent blackouts he experienced as a child However; there are consequences to his choices that propagate back to his present life, his alternate personal futures progress from college student, to prisoner, to amputee. His efforts are driven by the desire to undo the most unpleasant events of his childhood which coincide with his mysterious blackouts, including saving his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh（Amy Smart）from being molested by her father（Eric Stoltz）and tormented by her sadistic brother（William Lee Scott）.
The actions he takes, and enables others to take during his blackouts, change the timeline in the new future where he awakes. As he continues to do this he realizes that even though his intentions are good, his actions have unforeseen consequences. Moreover, the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternate timelines causes him brain damage and severe nosebleeds. Ultimately, he decides that his attempts to alter the past end up only harming those he cares about, and realizes that the main cause of everyone's suffering in all the different timelines is himself. At the conclusion of the film, Evan purposely travels back in time one final time to the first day he met Kayleigh. Before this, Evan learns that Kayleigh had a choice to either stay with her mom or her dad. Because she wanted to stay with Evan, she decided to stay with her dad, which caused all the problems in the first place. By scaring her away, Evan makes sure that she goes with her mom, thus allowing her to never be a part of his life. Through this, Evan finally succeeds in saving her life. He then destroys all of his journals and memories so that he is not ever tempted again to make any more changes.

The film ends eight years in the future with Evan leaving an office building in Manhattan and passing Kayleigh on a crowded sidewalk, They alternately pause and turn after spotting and passing each other. After a moment of hesitation, Evan lets her walk away without speaking to her.
公元2002年，埃文·特里伯恩（阿什頓·庫徹飾）在承受巨大壓力時，經(jīng)常會發(fā)生暫時性失憶。當(dāng)他是個孩子（羅根·勒曼飾）和青少年（約翰·帕特里克·阿梅多利飾）時，埃文遭受了許多嚴(yán)重的性侵犯和心理創(chuàng)傷。這些災(zāi)難包括被迫參與兒童色情、差點被他患有精神病的父親掐死、與他的朋友制造了爆炸事件、看見他的狗被他的朋友燒死。七年后，他與一個女孩在他的宿舍中玩時，他發(fā)現(xiàn)當(dāng)他閱讀年少時的日記時，他可以回到過去，并能改變過去。他的時間旅行的片段填補了他還是一個孩子時的那些暫時性失憶的片段。然而，他的選擇會被傳導(dǎo)到自己現(xiàn)在的生活中，產(chǎn)生了成為大學(xué)生、囚犯、截肢者等幾種不同的未來。他這樣做是為了能夠消除他童年時伴隨著他的暫時性失憶一起發(fā)生的那些最不愉快的事件，包括避免他童年時的心上人凱蕾（艾米·斯馬特飾）被其父親（埃里克·斯托爾茲飾）騷擾，以及避免被她的虐待狂哥哥（威廉姆·李·斯科特飾）折磨。 在他失去意識期間，他的行為與其他人的反應(yīng)，會在他醒來后生成新的未來。當(dāng)他不斷這樣做了幾次后，他意識到即使他的意圖是好的，行為也會造成不可預(yù)料的后果。而且，由于歷史的改變而產(chǎn)生的十幾年新記憶的同步，會造成他腦子的損傷，并引起嚴(yán)重的流鼻血。最終，他發(fā)現(xiàn)，他每次試圖改變歷史，都只會傷害他關(guān)心的人，并意識到，讓每個人在不同歷史中都痛苦的原因正是他自己。
在電影的結(jié)尾，他有意回到了第一次遇到凱蕾那天。在此之前，他得知凱蕾可以選擇是與她媽媽還是與她爸爸住一起。因為她想與埃文在一起，所以決定留在她爸爸身邊，而這正是一切問題的源頭。埃文通過嚇唬她，讓她去與她的媽媽一起生活，并因此使得她從此不再是他生活的一部分。通過這種方法，埃文終于成功地挽救了她的生命。然后他摧毀了他所有的日記與能引起回憶的物品，以確保他無法再試著做任何改變。
電影的結(jié)尾發(fā)生在八年后，埃文離開曼哈頓的一間辦公室并與凱蕾在擁擠的便道上擦肩而過。在彼此擦肩而過之后，他們交替停下來回頭看對方。經(jīng)過片刻的猶豫，埃文什么都沒有說，就這樣讓她走了。