Butterfly Kiss is a 1995 British film, directed by Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom

Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...

 and written by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Frank Cottrell Boyce

-Awards:*2004: Buch des Monats des Instituts für Jugendliteratur/Book of the Month by the Institute for Youth Literature , Millions*2004: Carnegie Medal, Millions*2004: Luchs des Jahres , Millions...

. It stars Amanda Plummer and Saskia Reeves

Saskia Reeves

Saskia Reeves is a British actress perhaps best known for her roles in the films Close My Eyes and ID , and the 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune....

. It was also released under the alternative title Killer on the Road.

Plot

Set on the bleak motorways of Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, Butterfly Kiss tells the story of Eunice (Plummer), a lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

, and Miriam (Reeves), a naive, innocent and lonely young girl who falls under her spell.

Miriam runs away from home and meets Eunice, who soon completely dominates her, leading her into sex and murder. At a truckstop Eunice first offers the unwilling Miriam to a trucker for sex, then rescues her in mid-rape

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 by murdering the driver. When the hitchhiking duo are picked up by another licentious male, Miriam returns to their motel room to find Eunice and their benefactor having rough sex in the shower. Mistaking the consensual sex with the rape from which Eunice earlier rescued her, Miriam returns the favor by beating their benefactor to death with the hand-held showerhead, to Eunice's delight. Eunice finally brings Miriam to the ocean, where she has Miriam assist her in a watery suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

. Miriam is arrested and ends up in an insane asylum, still innocently unaware of the gravity of her offenses.

Main cast

Actor	Role
Amanda Plummer	Eunice
Saskia Reeves Saskia Reeves Saskia Reeves is a British actress perhaps best known for her roles in the films Close My Eyes and ID , and the 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune....	Miriam
Kathy Jamieson Kathy Jamieson Kathy Jamieson is an English actress. Her first notable TV appearance was as "Maggie Brady" in educational historical drama How We Used To Live. She has appeared in British films including Business as Usual and Butterfly Kiss...	Wendy
Des McAleer	Eric McDermott
Lisa Riley Lisa Riley Lisa Riley is a British television presenter and actress probably best known for playing the role of Mandy Dingle in the television soap opera Emmerdale and succeeding Jeremy Beadle on You've Been Framed.-Career:...	Danielle
Freda Dowie Freda Dowie Freda Dowie is an English actress.Her television credits include: Dixon of Dock Green, Doomwatch, Edna, the Inebriate Woman, Upstairs, Downstairs, The Carnforth Practice, I, Claudius, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Pickwick Papers, Lillie, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Our Friends in the North and...	Elsie
Paula Tilbrook Paula Tilbrook Paula Tilbrook is an English actress who has played Betty Eagleton in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale since 1994.In 1977, she made an appearance as Stella Rigby in Coronation Street, and followed this by appearances as Olive Taylor-Brown in the same show in 1978 and 1980. From 1991 to 1993, she...	Ella
Fine Time Fontayne Fine Time Fontayne Fine Time Fontayne is an English character actor and stage director, including a successful production of Sleeping Beauty at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester, Essex, UK, in December 2007 and January 2008.Fontayne has played a variety of roles in British TV series such as All...	Tony
Joanne Cook	Angela
Elizabeth McGrath Elizabeth McGrath Elizabeth McGrath is an artist based in California who works primarily in the fields of sculpture and animation. Her work is often evocative of the darker side of life, and she has been nicknamed Bloodbath McGrath after the subject matter of her works...	Waitress
Shirley Vaughan	Waitress
Paul Bown Paul Bown Paul Bown is an English actor. He is best known as one of the leading roles of the Granada Television comedy Watching . Bown has also appeared in various plays and shows, including an advert for Toffee Crisp in the 1980s and more recently as Philip Reid in BBC's Holby City...	Gary
Emily Aston	Katie
Ricky Tomlinson Ricky Tomlinson Eric Tomlinson , known by his stage name Ricky Tomlinson, is an English actor and comedian, best known for his roles as Bobby Grant in Brookside, DCI Charlie Wise in Cracker and James "Jim" Royle in The Royle Family....	Robert
Katy Murphy Katy Murphy Katy Murphy is a Scottish actress who has appeared in Mike and Angelo, Spatz, B&B, The Steamie, The River, Takin' Over the Asylum, Casualty and perhaps most memorably Tutti Frutti. She played the part of Janet in the Radio 4 series Adventures of a Black Bag, and her most recent performance was in...	Judith
Adele Lawson	Wife
Jeffrey Longmore	Husband
Suzy Yannis	Motel receptionist
Julie Walker	Shop assistant

Reception

Film critic Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 noted that the characters' names are shortened to 'Mi' and 'Eu' throughout the film, suggesting that they may represent "parts of a schizophrenic

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...

 personality."

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

called it "An often breathtakingly original meld of road movie

Road movie

A road movie is a film genre in which the main character or characters leave home to travel from place to place. They usually leave home to escape their current lives.-History:...

, lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 love story, psychodrama

Psychodrama

Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy in which clients utilize spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage where...

 and black comedy

Black comedy

A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...

".