Meta-tales of writers becoming entrenched in their own worlds are satisfying when they’re done well. Brian Goodman’s Black Butterfly, a remake of a French TV-movie about a murder mystery writer past his prime and the ex-con he picks up on the road, comes close. The material creates intriguing scenarios that subtly comment on the nature of writing and experiencing one’s own fiction. Goodman and writers Marc Frydman and Justin Stanley maintain the core original plot and latter half twists, but the film unfortunately suffers from an imbalance between its slow build and the multiple narrative-altering twists in the finale.
Paul (Antonio Banderas) is the kind of disenchanted and drunkenly reckless man that picks fights with 18-wheelers on winding mountain roads. When the truck driver tries to retaliate at the local diner, tattooed hitchhiker Jack (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) intervenes. Paul may not get a fist in the face, but the encounter shuts down his attempts to invite his realtor Laura (Piper Perabo) to dinner. Driving back to his mountaintop home, he passes his savior and offers him the guest room for the night. Jack turns it into a three-day stint as Paul’s all-around handyman and chef and takes great interest in Paul’s writing. But when Paul tells Jack that he hasn’t written anything worthwhile in years, that interest turns into an active role in Paul’s process, with Jack telling Paul he has to stop drinking and concoct better stories.
While the casting may seem more expected from an early ’00s film, the trio of Banderas, Meyers and Perabo works well with this material and builds a tension-filled dynamic through the restrained first half action. The cluttered, claustrophobic setting evokes a mindset in which Paul might credibly allow Jack to take control of his life so quickly and completely. The tiny mountain cabin is not only secluded but isolating, and that stifling isolation, physical and mental, makes Paul slow to question how a temporary handyman turns into a jailer. It’s not just a matter of Jack imposing rules to make Paul focus on his work, but Jack dictates what the work is (their story) and even when Paul can leave the house (never).
The red flags should go up for Paul when Jack encourages him to be creative and think outside the box about the “Jack” character’s past and how their “story” will end. Unsatisfied with one written scene, Jack wakes Paul up in the middle of the night with a knife to his throat to prove, through first-person experience, how someone would react. This gets at the heart of the film’s first half: that Jack can make Paul a better writer through experience. And that plays out in real time with Jack creating every scenario (read: instigating every interaction and punishment), a head-trip that alters Paul’s sense of autonomy and authority as the true writer of their story.
While its initial concepts are fascinating, the film moves away from them, ultimately incorporating several murders and an FBI investigation. It’s fair to think of Black Butterfly, then, as a suspenseful murder mystery that delights in high concept meta commentary. If these were better integrated, the film could have avoided a midpoint lull that may lose audiences before the film reaches its thrilling conclusion.
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