Plot synopsis
Nick loses his two best friends, Trevor and Amanda, and also his pregnant girlfriend, Julie, in a car accident, which only he survives. A year later, he looks at a photo that was taken just before the accident. This causes a schizophrenic episode where he is able to relive the moments leading up to the event.
He makes different decisions, and when he wakes from the episode, his friends are all still alive. However, he now finds that his work is not going so well, so he decides to go back in time and change the relationship with his supervisor.
He does this, but when he returns, he has lost his girlfriend and is living the life of a financially successful but lonely bachelor. After each trip, many things are very different when he returns to the present.
Each time he goes back to fix something, it ends up worse overall. It seems his father had the same abilities and encountered the same problems. This caused him to end up in a mental institution, and he eventually committed suicide.
In the end, Nick goes back to relive the earliest scene of the movie. In order to save his pregnant girlfriend from the same car accident, he drives another vehicle over a cliff, which saves her life but kills him.
When she later gives birth, she names the baby after him. When the baby looks at a photo, he begins to shake. It’s then that we know he has the same abilities as both his father and grandfather.
My comments
The butterfly effect is when you change one small thing and it can sometimes but not always have a potentially big knock-on effect. In this film however, every time Nick went back in time, it caused a large divergence to the timeline.
Summary of time travel
When Nick travels back, he easily makes changes, so the past is open. When he returns to his present, the timeline has always strongly diverged.
Every time he goes back in time, no matter what he does, the timeline strongly diverges. This suggests an open past, open future model of time with a diverging timeline.
Note: the timeline did not always diverge in the original film because that was using a model of time with a double-well timeline.
Category of time travel
Psychological: psychosis.
Model of time
Open past, open future with a diverging timeline.
