''Chaos Theory'' is a 2008 American
comedy-drama
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
film starring
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian-American actor. He is one of the highest-grossing film actors of all time, with a worldwide box-office gross of over billion.
He began his career starring in the Canadian teen ...
,
Emily Mortimer
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer (born 6 October 1971) is a British-American actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performanc ...
, and
Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend (born 15 December 1972) is an Irish actor. He portrayed Lestat de Lioncourt in the film adaptation of Anne Rice's ''Queen of the Damned'' (2002), and Dorian Gray in Alan Moore's ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' (2003). ...
. The film was directed by
Marcos Siega
Marcos Siega (born June 8, 1969, in New York City) is a film, television, commercial and music video director. He has also worked as a producer, a musician and an artist.
In the late 1980s, he helped to form the New York-based punk band Bad Trip, ...
, written by Daniel Taplitz and
Kathy Gori, and was shot in
Coquitlam
Coquitlam ( ) is a city in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Mainly suburban, Coquitlam is the List of cities in British Columbia, sixth-largest city in the province, with a population of 148,625 in 2021, and one of the 21 municipa ...
and
Squamish, British Columbia
Squamish (; Squamish language, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim: Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, ; 2016 census population 19,512) is a community and a district municipality in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia, located at th ...
.
Plot
Frank Allen is a professional speaker who lectures on time management. He lives by example: perfectly maximizing his efficiency through scheduling and planning his own life down to the minute. He dearly loves his wife, Susan, and their young daughter, Jesse.
On the day of an important seminar that could be his major break on the corporate lecture circuit, Susan changes their clocks by 10 minutes, to give him time to run a meaningless errand for her on this important day, but she moves them the wrong way. From missing the ferry to the career-damaging fact that he then arrives late to his lecture on time management, Frank experiences an off day. He loves his wife so much that, when the beautiful Paula crashes his hotel room, strips down and jumps on him, Frank excuses himself and heads home in the middle of the night.
While driving home through the night he sees a pregnant woman, Nancy, having contractions and gives the stranger a lift. At the hospital, Frank is asked to fill out some paper work. He mistakenly puts his own information down and the nurses at the hospital assume he is the father.
Before Frank arrives home, a nurse from the hospital calls attempting to reach "the father". Susan instantly believes it is Frank's baby and that he is cheating on her and leading a double life. When Frank arrives home, she refuses to let him clear up the misunderstanding and throws him out of the house within moments. Her reaction through the next few days remains over the top, refusing to talk to Frank and only allowing him to see Jesse after school.
Left with no choice but to provide scientific proof to Susan, Frank sees a doctor for a paternity test, but receives the diagnosis that he was never able to reproduce to begin with, since he has
Klinefelter's syndrome
Klinefelter syndrome (KS), also known as 47,XXY, is an aneuploid genetic condition where a male has an additional copy of the X chromosome. The primary features are infertility and small, poorly functioning testicles. Usually, symptoms are s ...
. The undeniable truth about Jesse and, thus, Susan's own infidelity devastates Frank - but also explains why Susan so instantly presupposed that Frank was a cheater, treating him with unforgiving disdain and refusing to let him even try to clarify the situation.
A few days later, Nancy brings her baby to the Allens' house in hopes of thanking Frank for his kindness, finding only Susan at home. Nancy soon clears up the misunderstanding. Susan turns on a dime, ignoring her atrocious behaviour of the past few days and expecting Frank to simply come home, acting as if she is the one who has forgiven him. The damage is done, however, as Frank realizes that he was the only one in the relationship who was faithful, and goes through a withdrawal as he tries to comprehend how his daughter could not be his and how wrong his life turned out when he believed that he has always stayed straight and narrow.
After giving a life-changing speech about living on whim at his own time management lecture, he decides to live his life based on chance from that moment on. He starts his reformed outlook on life with the simple idea of possibility and randomness by basing his decisions on shuffling three index cards with written options and choosing one at random.
He goes on to have a one night stand with the woman he met at the bar but he’s too drunk to perform.
He realizes that Buddy is the father of his child and plots to kill Buddy. He lures him to the lake and try to kill him but they both fall into the lake and buddy saves Frank.
Buddy backs off and Frank realizes that he loves his family and forgives his wife and goes back to them.
In present day the groom realizes that he loves the daughter and decides to get married.
Cast
*
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian-American actor. He is one of the highest-grossing film actors of all time, with a worldwide box-office gross of over billion.
He began his career starring in the Canadian teen ...
as Frank Allen
*
Emily Mortimer
Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer (born 6 October 1971) is a British-American actress. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performanc ...
as Susan Allen
*
Stuart Townsend
Stuart Townsend (born 15 December 1972) is an Irish actor. He portrayed Lestat de Lioncourt in the film adaptation of Anne Rice's ''Queen of the Damned'' (2002), and Dorian Gray in Alan Moore's ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' (2003). ...
as Buddy Endrow
*
Sarah Chalke
Sarah Louise Christine Chalke (; born August 27, 1976) is a Canadian actress and model. She is known for portraying Elliot Reid on the NBC/ABC comedy series '' Scrubs'', the second Becky Conner on the ABC sitcom ''Roseanne'', Stella Zinman on ...
as Paula Crowe
*
Mike Erwin
Mike Erwin (born August 31, 1978) sometimes credited as Michael Erwin, is an American actor who is best known for playing Colin Hart from 2002 to 2006 in the WB television series ''Everwood''.
Early life
Erwin was born in Dalton, Georgia, on Aug ...
as Ed
*
Constance Zimmer
Constance Zimmer (born October 11, 1970) is an American actress. She rose to prominence for playing Dana Gordon in the television series '' Entourage'' (2005–2011) and Claire Simms in the television series ''Boston Legal'' (2006–2007). Sh ...
as Peg the Teacher
*
Matreya Fedor
Matreya Natasha Fedor (born March 11, 1997) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her role as Echo Zizzleswift in ''Mr. Young'', and for her recurring roles as Phoebe Collins in ''The Troop'' and as Allison Weston in '' Cedar Cove''.
Life an ...
as Jesse Allen (7 years)
*
Elisabeth Harnois
Elisabeth Harnois ( ; born ) is an American actress. Her career started at the age of five, where she began appearing in a number of film and television roles. As a child, she starred as Alice in Disney's '' Adventures in Wonderland'' and as an ...
as Jesse Allen
*
Chris William Martin
Christopher William Martin (born January 17, 1975), also known as Corky Martin or Chris Martin, is a Canadian actor.Glen Schaefer, "Felicity's hair-raiser: Vancouver actor Chris Martin's job was to stir the pot and divert attention from star Keri ...
as Damon
*
Jovanna Huguet as Maid of Honor
*
Christopher Jacot
Christopher Jacot (born June 30, 1979) is a Canadian film, television and voice actor. He has appeared in 3 seasons of ''Slasher''.
Early life
Jacot was born in Toronto. He attended Earl Haig Secondary School in the Claude Watson programme for d ...
as Simon / Best Man
*
Alessandro Juliani
Alessandro Juliani (born July 6) is a Canadian actor and singer. He is notable for playing the roles of Tactical Officer Lieutenant Felix Gaeta on the Sci-Fi Channel television program ''Battlestar Galactica'', Emil Hamilton in ''Smallville'', Ja ...
as Ken
*
Jocelyne Loewen
Jocelyne Rae Loewen (born 1976) is a Canadian actress working in Vancouver, Canada. She is known for her roles in the English dubs of anime series. She is best known as the voice of Yai Ayano in the '' Mega Man NT Warrior'' series, Mii from ''Po ...
as Pregnant Nancy
Reception
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 31% based on reviews from 59 critics. The site's critical consensus reads: "Ryan Reynolds and Emily Mortimer do what they can, but ultimately ''Chaos Theory'' is an overly conventional
dramedy
Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...
." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film had a weighted average score of 44 out of 100, based on reviews from 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Dennis Harvey of
''Variety'' wrote: "The lead performers, the brighter fillips in Daniel Taplitz’s screenplay and Marcos Siega’s ("Pretty Persuasion") assured direction make this a pleasing item overall."
Michael Rechtshaffen of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...
'' wrote: "The picture continuously shuffles moods like tunes on an iPod without ever making any lasting commitments."
Home media
The DVD was released on June 17, 2008, in the US.
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Marcos Siega
2008 films
2008 comedy-drama films
American comedy-drama films
Films directed by Marcos Siega
Films shot in Vancouver
Films about dysfunctional families
Warner Independent Pictures films
Castle Rock Entertainment films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films