Butter

Rites of passage films have been produced for decades so we can either understand, or even relate to its character(s) in a film as they are attempting to understand life and its trials. They are typically presented as comedy or a light drama. Sometimes, they are heavy-laden dramas which can make for a tough sit. When it comes to "Butter", it is a light drama with some comic relief thrown in to hopefully create an understanding between characters. 

Butter Elkans (Alex Kersting) is a smart, funny, but lonely high school junior who happens to be obese. He secretly befriends the prettiest girl in school, Anna McGinn (McKaley Miller) via school social media by pretending to be a jock from another school. As Butter struggles with bullying and self-esteem at school, he plans on making history by going on-line and eat himself to death and invites everyone to watch. When he first makes the announcement online to his classmates, including Parker (Jack Griffo) and Trent (Adain Bradley), Butter expects pity, insults, and possibly sheer indiference. What he gets are morbid cheerleaders rallying around his deadly plan. Yet as their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity, and that feels good. But what happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Can he live with the fallout if he doesn't go through with his plans?

Others to round out the cast are Mira Sorvino as Marian, Butter's mother, Mykelti Williamson as Professor Dunn, Brian Van Holt as Frank, Butter's father, Ravi Patel as Doc Bean, Annabeth Gish as Dr. Jennice, Natalie Valerin as Jeannie, Jake Austin Walker as Jeremy, Matthew Gold as Tucker, Monte Markham as Dr. Kaufman and Jessie Rabideau as Penelope. 

This was delineated well by director Paul A. Kaufman ("Run the Wild Fields" (TV movie) 2000, Honeymoon with Mom" '06, "My Name is Sarah" (TV movie) '07, "One Angry Juror" (TV movie) '10, "Twist of Fate" (TV movie) '13, "The Memory Book" (TV movie) '14, "Christmas List" (TV movie) '16, "Christmas Homecoming" (TV movie) '17) plus other TV movies and TV. By his very resume, this filmmaker doesn't have a tremendous amount of feature film experience, however, where he is deficient there, he more than makes up with his TV movie expertise. Being behind the camera is being behind the camera. It truly doesn't make a lot of difference as long as you are directing and that makes Kaufman is a seasoned pro. This being a film in which Alex Kersting was introduced showed me that he was amazingly effective in the title role. An Academy Award performance? Of course not, but considering, he gave a believable performance, and this is the talent of the directing. It was effectively written by Kaufman ("Emma's Wish" (TV movie, story) '98, "Thirst" (TV movie, story) '98, based on the book by Erin Jade Lange. As with other films that are the 'rites of passage' films, this was a voice over narrative of Butter's life spoken by Butter intertwined throughout the film. I personally have an affinity toward this kind of format, because it allows the audience to gain more knowledge about the character, and, a lot of times, it's written in a tongue-and-cheek way, which can give it that comic relief when needed. However, there were a few areas of inconsistencies and some places of being disjointed. I believe if given more work, Kaufman could be a very honed writer, but considering his limited writing experience, he actually pulled this off amazingly well. It had a very believable supporting cast that had you rooting for Butter. And also given more work, Alex Kersting will definitely become a very honed actor.

If you like 'rites of passage' films, this should interest you. It has such an important message about bullying and suicide that it alone should be enough to cause one to think: those going through the agony and those who are causing the agony. 

Out of 4 Stars: 2.5                                         Rated: PG-13                                                111mins.