he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope
At his darkest, Phil Connors certainly paints a gloomy picture: “I’ll give you a winter prediction,” he says. “It’s gonna be cold, it’s gonna be gray, and it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.” But, I’m not sure he ever has it as bad as Evan Treborn in The Butterfly Effect . Of course, Evan’s plight is not a time loop, per se. Instead, it’s a regular rewriting of his own history (damaging his brain as he goes) to set things “right.” It’s like Quantum Leap if Sam Beckett had a really fucked up childhood and was leaping into himself in every episode, not just “The Leap Home.” SPOILERS ahead, obviously. Ashton Kutcher’s Evan deals with murderous adolescents, pedophile fathers, baby-killing explosives, burning dogs, and in the original ending (now available with the Director’s Cut), he eventually strangles himself with his umbilical cord in the womb. So, it’s not really a light-hearted film, and certainly not a comedy like Groundhog Day . Still, there’s a certain similarity in t...