User Reviews

If you generally don't like murder films you'll hate this movie, never mind the fact that it's actually very good. Very little heed (if any) is paid to the numerous victims, their bodies falling to the side of the storyline as the obsessed female lovers move on, taking the plot with them. Butterfly Kiss introduces two startlingly distinctive, unique women, opposites drawn together by loneliness and a need for balance. Eunice is a dispairing, tortured soul who searches the bland, grey motorways of England for the ever-absent Judith (does this abstract individual really exist or is she another figment of Eunice's amazingly complex and unstable psyche?). People who turn out not to be Judith tend to end up the victim of Eu's homocidal wrath (note though that Judiths importance to Eu was going to end up in mortal sacrifice also). Eunice has no inhibitions, no scruples; her behaviour is repulsive, obnoxious, sexually promiscuous, extravagantly moody. She acts purely on impulse and instinct, rarely using her devastated mind, for Eunice actually wants to be caught, and wants to be punished. In fact, she consistantly pushes her luck in aggravating people, beleiving God (and I guess the rest of the world) has forgotten her. Consequently she is forced to punish herself, wrapping her scrawny body in chains that hurt and bruise her. It is quite possible that a lot of her other actions throughout the film, which are illogical and cruel up front, are more attempts by Eu at self-punishment though that is left for the audience to mull over. Miriam, by contrast, is water to Eu's fire, a metaphor even she explains in her black and white interveiws dotted throughout the film, as she tells their story to a camera. Miriam at first looks to be dim, naive, childish and ineloquent in her speech. Reading between the lines this version of Mi fails to convince, instead giving the image of perceptive, open-minded in the extreme, generous and angelicly kind. Whether this was supposed to be Mi or was Saskia Reeves' true intelligence mistakenly worming its way to the surface is unknown, and it doesnt really matter -the character was nontheless, adorable. As lonely and love-starved as Eunice, their similarities end there. Mi is totally honest and forthcoming; her love for Eunice is complete and unconditional. Along with being painfully direct, Eunice is also implicitly dishonest. When Miriam discovers Eu's homocidal nature she is already in love. She disposes of the body without encouragment from Eu and sets out to support Eu and make her a better person. Rather she becomes a murderer herself, though through more subtle indications she retains all the original beauty and kindness of her placid personality. People who may dislike this movie are being subjectively incorrect in saying that it isn't good. Truly it is not a pleasant film to watch but it is still a worthwhile peice of artistry riddled with talent.

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.

One of the most memorable movies I've ever had the fortunate experience of picking up at a video rental store. It exposed me to one of the best actresses of the 20th., and now 21st. Century: Amanda Plummer. My praise of this film does not finish with Ms.Plummer's believable portrayal of this intense, psychotic young woman. Being an ex-patriot (as they say), I could even smell the petrol (gasoline) fumes. I felt as though I were 'Up North'. It's not a pretty picture! It's certainly not one to be missed by any serious film (noir) lover. You might also check out 'Heavenly Creatures' 1994.

This is a very astute observation of a woman with borderline personality disorder, and the effect it has on those who cross her path. As with many psychiatric disorders, people are dismissed as "bad" based on behaviour which is to them entirely normal. The complete lack of empathy or respect for life is shown as distressingly as it occurs with this disorder. The lead actress is superb in a role which must be taxing, to say the least. The role of Miriam is also played with skill and depth. In light of the recent suicide of Robin Williams, thought to be suffering from bipolar disorder ( as are so many creative beings) to me shows the need to explore and explain mental illness. This does.

I don't know if Eu is Bi-Polar because all I saw was raging mania; probably schizophrenic. She says what she wants, she does what she wants, and, when she takes off her shirt, you know she'll never be flying. So, she kills a guy and takes his van. This is a bit much for Mi, but she goes along anyway. Mi is the complete opposite of Eu. Naive and lonely and in real need, she hangs on for dear life.

Amanda Plummer (The Fisher King, Miss Rose White) nailed this role in the performance of a lifetime. I cannot imagine anyone else playing Eunice (Eu). Saskia Reeves as Miriam (Mi) showed a sweetness that prevented her from objecting too loudly to Eu's deeds, until she transforms herself.

Michael Winterbottom's (A Cock and Bull Story, The Road to Guantanamo) idea was developed into a great script by Frank Cottrell Boyce (A Cock & Bull Story). Winterbottom directed this film in a manner that your attention was always focused on what these two would do next.

The van is switched for a car and the bodies are oiling up as they travel across the country. We never really know who "Judith" is, and it really doesn't matter as it is probably something deep in Eu's madness.

Quite a different ending than Thelma and Louise.

I saw this film years ago, when it just was released in the cinemas here in the UK. I was young then and it was almost a painful experience to watch it through to conclusion. I remember it being described once as a horror film. I wouldn't have agreed with that as a genre, but I could see why. I feel that the much later BAISE MOI owes much to the ground that this first tread. I enjoyed it, but through parted fingers at the time. The many scenes that seemed to dwell lovingly on flesh pulled tight till bleeding seemed gruesome in extremis. I think I got it the first time. After that, HELLRAISER was hardly as dread as it hoped to be. With so many films being much the same as the other, I think we need more films like this - if only to give us more choice.

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 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.

The title is misleading for a film that really doesn't have anything pleasant about it. Amanda Plummer's character made my skin crawl and still haunts me when watching her other work. I suppose this gives strength to her performance and shows she is a great character actor. Saskia Reeves takes on a role as a wimpish lesbian besotted with Amanda Plummer's character. Saskia usually plays stronger more interesting roles but I suppose it creates contrast. Be prepared for a road movie with a difference. Lots of gore and little compassion.

This film is definitely not a film you want to see if you need your spirits picked up. It is about an interaction between two psychotic individuals, hardly "When Harry Met Sally." The performances in the film were quite good at times, a couple of times the action seemed cardboard, but then you wonder if two people like that wouldn't act like cardboard sometimes. I thought for the most part it was well done...good performances...very strange script.

What prompted me to write this was reading another viewer review that claimed this film was terrible. Now, I am not going to attack that reviewer; everyone is entitled to their own opinion and all that, but I am going to tell you why I disagree with what that person wrote.

Eunice and Miriam are the central characters. Known to each other as Eu and Mi, (You and Me). Eunice feels God has forgotten her, so makes has to punish herself or her sins and crimes. Miriam is a sweet, sensitive girl, a complete opposite to Eu. At opposite ends of whatever the scale might have been, Eu and Mi cross the country so Eu can find the only person she has ever loved...

It is a shocking tale. It is disturbing, depressing. It is, for me more of a tragedy that Hamlet and Macbeth put together and multiplied a hundred times. Love and Redemption. Love. Love. Love. That's what it's all about.

The final scene of any film should be something. I have never cried so hard in a film as I have in this one. Everybody who considers themself a fan of the 'non-Hollywood' style film with heart and guts, then see this incredible film! 10/10

If this film had been about two gay lovers going around murdering women, the feminists would have come out of the woodwork to condemn it. Of course since it's a female murdering males left and right, it's OK with everyone. The NOW harpies denounced "American Psycho" calling it a how-to for killing women. And it had only a fraction of the body count, female-wise. Funny how they overlooked this one. Oh that's right, it's "good" to see men killed by a woman.

In any event, it's a total tasteless waste of anyone's time. Perhaps a few man haters (of either gender) will get a charge out of it. Even if you liked "Natural Born Killers" (another slaughter fest of males) you will not likely enjoy this endless, plodding and senseless movie. I can't imagine anyone involved with this disaster would ever use it on his/her resume.

You can say what ever you want on this movie, but amanda plummer stays the best actress on the planet. If you would meet her in the street she could make you believe that she has been like that all her life, because she lives in a role like i have seen nobody else do. By the way this isn't an easy role to play. Further it must be said that micheal winterbottom isn't one of the worst directors around either, as far as i know i haven't seen anything of him less than excellent. This movie was so good that i cried at the end

Look, for instance at darkfalz' comments. No , on second thoughts don't bother , the man is deranged, I just looked up his record of comments on other films and I see he is perfectly foaming at the mouth when it comes to depictions of women in anything but vapid model-girl roles. Oh yes, and he appears to think female victims of male violence are somehow to blame for it, merely by being there.

I originally saw it as a tortured love story between one deeply damaged, psychotic woman and another who was drawn to her awful power , almost against her will. Perhaps an element of S & M present also. However I see Eu and Mi are interestingly suggested as different personalities of the same person by one reviewer. I'll have to see it again in the light of this comment. I didn't actually think the fact that both were women was particularly significant- not at all meant to be representative of lesbian love or anything like that. In fact the couple could have been a man and a woman or two men, the issue really was the attraction and need the two had for each other. Serious acting and screenplay. The accents didn't bother me, why should they, we hear thick US accents in movies all the time. I never quite understand why some Americans appear to need subtitles for Australian or UK accents

WHAT CAN I WRITE NOW ABOUT THIS PERFECT FILM?

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE CREATORS FIRST OF ALL!

Really i wonder if any person that saw this film could possibly say that he didn't like it! it's an amazing film, full of love, despair, tenderness and finally salvation.

the end of the film is the most "strong" ,affecting, redemptory, gorgeous ending of all times!

a great movie!!!! with great music also!.......... there's no need to argue anymore.......

The thing that first struck me was seeing Amanda Plummer playing in an English movie. A nice surprise. She really has some great acting skills. After seeing Pulp Fiction I automatically assumed she was an American actress. Looking at BK however, gave me the strong idea that she had to be British, speaking with such an explicit Northern English accent.... IMDB learned me that she is American after all. Tops!! Of course her role is a very bizarre one: a man-hating lesbian who seems to kill others at random. She takes Saskia Reeves with her in a negative downstream which finally results in an ending that can't give a good feeling to anyone seeing the movie. In spite of that (after having some doubt) I found that I truly liked this movie. Thanks to those two fabulous playing actresses (I'd never seen Saskia Reeves before but I liked her right away. Not thanks to the story: I never found out what the rue reason was behind all the killings. 7 out of 10.

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.

I found 'Butterfly Kiss' to be at once sad and horrifying, and a story of both love and hate. It drew from me feelings of empathy for the characters of Eunice (Eu)and Miriam (Mi), and revulsion for the acts of horror which mark their journey. Is this a love story where everyone else and everything else is disregarded for the sake of Eunice's relentless search for love, fulfillment, punishment, Judith? Or is this an observation of the torment of a schizophrenic woman? So much here to involve you and that will stay with you long after. The bleak northern England setting matches the mood of the movie perfectly, and the story shows Eu and Mi's journey and relationship but cleverly leaves much of it a mystery, but what really makes this special is the outstanding performance from Amanda Plummer as Eunice.

There are, it is said, seven basic plots that we can use for creating stories, and "Butterfly Kiss" is clearly in the category "The Quest." In a "Quest" the protagonist will need to make an arduous journey, through difficult and dangerous lands (or across stormy seas), to find the buried treasure, the Holy Grail, the sacred ring, the Golden Fleece, the magic mountain, the Celestial City - or maybe just get back home. It is also likely to be a quest for personal self-fulfilment, the search for a moment of enlightenment, or the completion of one's destiny.

"We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started, And know the place for the first time," as T. S. Eliot put it.

Authors (in this case Frank Cottrell Boyce and Michael Winterbottom) make the rules: what is to be the object of the (successful?) quest, what will count as an obstacle or an enemy, which weapons or skills the protagonist will be able to deploy, and whether there will be one or more companions to share the rigours of the journey. And then the authors have to stick to the rules they have made.

That said, you probably won't like the rulebook that drives "Butterfly Kiss." But it has its own horrific logic. Eunice (Amanda Plummer) is searching for "Judith" in an environment all too familiar to us: highways greater and lesser, with their gas stations and truck stops (this time in England's Lancashire). And there is an elusive melody to be played. Like Christian in "The Pilgrim's Progress" Eunice carries a physical burden, some padlocked chains. Dragons will need to be slain along the way, but these turn out to be shop assistants working at gas stations, and their "crime" is to disappoint Eunice, to fail to meet her needs!

But one young woman does not fail her: Miriam (Saskia Reeves) becomes her companion in the quest, abandoning her helpless mother to pursue a greater destiny. At first Eunice is walking, but the pair are able to commandeer a range of vehicles. And guys, you should not mess with these ladies, because retribution can be swift.

This is a film that will divide audiences. Some viewers will try to fit it into a conventional moral framework - but it will not fit, it cannot fit. Other viewers will be prepared to accept (if not embrace) the bizarre. It might be a comfort (but of course it isn't) to know that humans have done much worse things in real life.

This is a strange British film which revolves around a relationship between two characters that alternates between super sweet and super disturbing (one of them has a penchant for asking people at petrol stations if they've heard a specific love song then kills them afterwards). Love and redemption, like a modern Shakespearean tragedy, courses through the film's veins. The repetitive nature of the narrative coalesces into a hypnotic rhythm, riding the pace out sleekly. Though scripted, the film feels spontaneous, exciting and shows subtle natural variation on a theme. The characters attempt to obtain purification, thinking that murder is the only way they can downplay their other more humanly flaws. Powerful, strong film that is refreshingly modest and practical.

This movie was great. I had to watch it twice, to make sure I got it all. It would be a great show to watch if you're in a phsycology class in college. I think the movie should be watched in education class. Amanda Plummer did a great performance. There are real people out there actually doing and thinking exactly what she did in the show. There are moments in the movie that seem as if this was a true story. If it is, I would like to know so I can read up on it. The title should be different. I can not think of one, but butterfly kiss just does not fit.

My personal opinion is Amanda should get an award.