Butterfly Kiss

If you’re sick of kinky killers and English rip-offs of American genre movies, this terminally bleak and violent 1995 road movie may irritate the hell out of you–unless you’re as impressed as I was by Amanda Plummer’s performance as an impulsive lesbian murderer searching for her ex-lover and dragging along Saskia Reeves on her adventures. Just when I was about to give up on this shocker as the worst kind of deja vu, it unexpectedly reminded me of the fury of Flannery O’Connor and some of her craziest and most alienated characters–and roped me back in. Michael Winterbottom (Family) directed, fairly adroitly, from a script by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Music Box, Friday through Thursday, August 9 through 15.

–Jonathan Rosenbaum

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Photo of two women from “Butterfly Kiss”.