“Giving Birth to a Butterfly” (2023) revolves around the Dent family: mother Diana (Annie Parisse), dad Daryl (Paul Sparks, Parisse’s husband), son Drew (Owen Campbell) and daughter Danielle (Rachel Resheff). Drew introduces his pregnant (not with his child) girlfriend, Marlene (Gus Birney), to the family with mixed reactions. As the film unfolds, Diana relies on Marlene to help her fix a mistake—a purchase of identity protecting software ends up taking the family’s life savings, which leads to a surreal road trip.
A persistent PR person got me to put “Giving Birth to a Butterfly” on the top of my assignment list, which is no small feat considering that I was deep in ignoring email mode. It was not her first or only solicitation, but it stuck out among the cacophony of demands. It was marketed as Lynchian, which should have been a turn off for me, but the suburban odd couple road trip appealed. The title comes from Mina Loy wrote who wrote the poem, “Songs to Joannes,” which is allegedly a lament about a breakup with Futurist Giovanni Papini. Loy was fascinated with the idea of a fifth dimension, which exists inside a person and is the source of great art and literature. Becoming a lawyer eliminated my ability to understand poetry so my fifth dimension is shrinking. If I had known the literature inspiration for the film, I would have stayed away, but standing alone, the title evokes the mysterious process of transformation, how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly (a glorified insect with excellent PR because of their distinct, overrated wings…you can have them!),
When I watch a movie, I try to erase what little I know about the film and avoid any spoilers so I forgot about the email’s content and just plunged in. The opening of “Giving Birth to a Butterfly” gave the impression of a group of coworkers going through a dead stranger’s home to prepare for an estate sale and make a profit. Everyone is in different parts of the house, the mother and daughter calling out to each other in different rooms and the son and his girlfriend secretly in another part of the house waiting for the father to come home to emerge and ease the girlfriend’s introduction to the family. The whole movie has an off-kilter, counterintuitive feel as the camera pans away from people and explores the space around the characters, the way that light plays off surfaces, the way that things look when you’re looking through a window in your house or a car. The double play of moments being allusions to the Simpsons and classical Greek culture is echoed in the theme of twins established early in the film, two identical white dresses, mom’s twin bosses at the pharmacy, the Janus software that puts Diana in a pickle. Also Diana is the goddess of the hunt and childbirth so director and cowriter Theodore Schaefer and cowriter Patrick Lawle were definitely going for something with the numerous allusions to deer and pairing the mom with the mom to be, but it does not quite land.
The family dynamic interested me the most. Danielle is the peacemaker who fills the tense spaces between her parents’ exchanges. Diana seems uptight and judgmental in comparison to Daryl, but Daryl overdoes the easy-going façade, which drops when he is alone with his wife or frustrated at the chasm between the reality of his work versus his ambition. Instead of commiserating with his family’s similar frustrations, he leaves them no space of respite for themselves, and they must serve King Baby. He is revealed to be a family tyrant and societal victim who can only be a big man deserving of respect from his family as if they are his employees. Drew is less like his father than he initially appears though he benefits from the implicit sexism that dominates the household and allows men to unilaterally dictate the family’s action. He later emerges as the most perspicacious character who remarks, “Everyone is in their own fucking cage.” That cage is each character’s solitary delusion which isolates them from others because there is no shared reality. He can traverse between the worlds that each character creates and stays in, but not connect and communicate with anyone for long, especially Marlene’s delusional mom, Monica (Constance Shulman, who is Birney’s mom), a former actor who is stuck in the past when she got a role in a movie that never got shot.
In Diana’s family, she has no safe place to land except the kindness of a stranger. Eager to please, Marlene agrees to Diana’s desperate plea for help. Marlene is a woman who lives in her head, preferring libraries, and museums, but knows it unlike the others who have made their reality into an ill-fitting dream, which makes them insane or bullies. Marlene’s proclivity to wax poetically brings out a lyrical side to Diana which fully materializes when they arrive at their destination at which point “Giving Birth to a Butterfly” leans into the surreal quality and exchanges its narrative for an oneiric logic, which leads to a happy ending of sorts for Diana. The software purchase did protect Diana’s identity. By losing everything, she finds herself, which includes perhaps the imaginary friend whom she recalls at the beginning of the film. Instead of living her husband’s dream, she gets her own.
Except what about Danielle? Yes, mom deserves a turn, but Diana also mentioned earlier in “Giving Birth to a Butterfly” that Danielle would need help to transition into adulthood. This road trip was supposed to help Danielle, and while Diana deserves to rest, Danielle is parentified as the only adult in the house with a dad who acts more like a selfish teenager. Worse-no one has yet to warn her about Theodore, an actor at the play where Danielle is doing the lighting who appears to be moving in on Danielle, who may have a crush on him. It is not much of a surprise when a new character is introduced late in the story then Marlene reveals his backstory. Of course, he is pivotal.
“Giving Birth to a Butterfly” seems to portend the inevitable entrapment of Danielle into the same hell that her mother occupied, a world where a woman disappears into the life of a man with poor judgment. Marlene is also ejected from this sanctuary from identity theft because she is pregnant. So exile from self is related to gender, youth and the potential to reproduce while I want them to be warned away from making the same mistakes. Ugh. I suppose we’ll have to settle for Diana giving birth to herself.
There is a line between accepting a movie for what it is and what you want it to be, but it is difficult in practice. “Giving Birth to a Butterfly” deserves points for committing to a creative exploration of self at the intersection of the quotidian and wonderland, but I preferred the prior. There is a lot of symbolic monologuing, which makes it harder to follow the thread and just winds up with a vibe that feels like a still elegant Grey Gardens meets a chill, healed Mrs. Haversham.
Let’s talk about the cats for “Giving Birth to a Butterfly.” When I saw a cat in a cage, I was triggered, but Lisa was so chill that I stopped worrying. There was also a gorgeous mini panther running after oranges. It is a memorable image, and I have no idea how it fits.
“Giving Birth to a Butterfly” is a collection of notable moments and themes, but never coheres into a seamless whole.
