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 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.
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).
People will definately be surprised at Kutcher’s performance and this movie is an inarguable breakthrough for him as a dramatic actor. Amy Smart shows her dramatic chops as well, after doing comedic roles in Rat Race and Road Trip. It’s kind of a dream role, in that she gets to play four characters in one movie, each one multi-dimensional and vastly diverse from the previous ones. I read that Eldon Henson, dropped and gained 30 pounds for his various roles as well. I think it demonstrates the dedication that the actors put into the project and it certainly pays off on screen.
It’s an incredibly thought provoking concept with all these cool set ups and payoffs along the way. I was surprised by how violent it was at times, but it worked for the story and I’m not turned off by that kinda thing. By far one of the best movies I’ve seen this year and deserves some sort of critical acclaim even though it comes out at a time of year when movies are for the most part forgotten.
Directors: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
Year of Release: 2004
Character to watch: Ashton Kutcher as Evan.
Journal your answers to the following questions after you watch the movie.
- How does this particular character’s journey compare with yours?
- Did the character develop certain characteristics during the movie that you have or that you would like to have? If so, what are those characteristics?
- What obstacles did this character face? What was his or her biggest challenge?
- What would you have done differently if you had been in the same position as the character?
- Is this character the type of person you would be friends with? Why or why not?