The Butterfly Effect

Fernando Colomo, the Spanish producer/director best known for Skyline, based on his experiences in New York, transfers his gently satirical gaze to London. Straitlaced Luis (Malla) enrols in a summer course at the London School of Economics. Soon after he finds lodgings in a Camberwell council flat with untidy Star Trek fanatic Oswald (Fleet), their neighbour, Luis's free-spirited aunt Olivia (Barranco), has a bust-up with her philandering actor partner (Sullivan). Luis offers comfort, but, when his mum (Sardá) asked her younger sister to shake him out of his conservative ways, was an affair what she had in mind? The movie's scores on its vitality and because Colomo has an evident feel for London life, especially as experienced by foreigners. Less successful is the ambitious attempt to relate Chaos Theory (direct-to-camera explanations) to human personalities, emotions and behaviour, and the predictable half-hearted celebration of 'liberated' ethics in an otherwise conventional romance.