''The Blue Butterfly'' (french: Le papillon bleu) is a 2004 Canadian
adventure drama film
An adventure film is a form of adventure fiction, and is a genre of film. Subgenres of adventure films include swashbuckler films, pirate films, and survival films. Adventure films may also be combined with other film genres such as action, anima ...
, directed by
Léa Pool
Léa Pool C.M. (born 8 September 1950) is a Swiss-Canadian filmmaker who taught film at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She has directed several documentaries and feature films, many of which have won significant awards including the ...
, produced by
Porchlight Entertainment and
Alliance Atlantis
Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. (commonly known as Alliance Atlantis and commonly shortened to simply Alliance or Atlantis and formerly traded as TSX:AAC) was a Canadian media company that operated primarily as a specialty service operato ...
, distributed by Monterey Media and starring
Marc Donato
Marc Giuseppe Donato (born January 25, 1989) is a Canadian actor.
Career
One of the earliest films in which Donato appears is as eight-year-old Mike Hillary in the low budget television film, ''Specimen''.
Later roles include Derek Haig on '' ...
as Pete Carlton, a boy terminally ill with cancer, whose final wish is to find the elusive
blue morpho butterfly.
William Hurt
William McChord Hurt (March 20, 1950 – March 13, 2022) was an American actor. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he received various awards including an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor.
H ...
plays
entomologist Alan Osborne, who takes him to the
jungle
A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past recent century.
Etymology
The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaá ...
s of
Costa Rica to find the insect.
The story is based on the life of David Marenger
and his trip with entomologist
Georges Brossard in 1987. It was filmed on location in Canada's Montreal, Quebec and Central America's Costa Rica.
Plot
Pete Carlton is a young
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
boy with terminal cancer. He has a love for butterflies, and often watches
entomologist Alan Osborne's television show. His mother, Teresa, meets with Osborne, to try to get him to take her son to Costa Rica to find the rare
blue morpho butterfly. However, he dismisses her, but later comes to their home upon receiving a phone call from Pete saying he would go to
Central America
Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...
himself. The two arrive at a small village when they learn the blue morphos have already
migrated. Heartbroken, they prepare to leave, until they find one is still in the jungle. They chase after it several times, but are unable to catch it. Pete is determined to find the "magical" butterfly so his cancer can be cured, which leads to them falling into a cavern, injuring Osborne badly. Pete escapes to get help (recalling the earlier words of Mr. Osborne, "You run faster in the jungle without your pants") but it only leads to him being lost, suffering from
hallucination
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
s. Osborne is rescued, and as they are leaving to a hospital for Osborne, a friendly villager reveals she has caught the butterfly, giving it to Pete. As he is about to kill it for his collection, he lets it go so it can make more of the magical butterflies. An epilogue shows that at the next visit to the doctor, Pete's cancer had miraculously disappeared.
Cast
References
External links
*
*
Official site (Archived at Archive.org)
2004 films
2000s adventure drama films
Canadian drama films
English-language Canadian films
Films directed by Léa Pool
2004 drama films
2000s English-language films
2000s Canadian films
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