Released 1998
Stars Amanda Plummer, Saskia Reeves, Kathy Jamieson, Des McAleer
Directed by Michael Winterbottom

"I've looked all up and down these roads for someone to love me," says Eunice, the tortured murderess and pilgrim whose story is told in ``Butterfly Kiss.'' Later she observes, "punishment is all I understand." She is a gaunt, angry woman who stalks the roadsides of Britain, bursting into petrol stations to ask the women behind the counter, "Are you Judith?" Then she kills them.

But she doesn't kill Miriam, the slow-witted, hard-of-hearing clerk who sees Eunice splashing herself with gasoline and walks out of the store and sits next to her on a concrete wall, and is kind to her. After they talk quietly, Eunice reaches out and kisses Miriam, who is from that moment completely dazzled by her power. "Mother, Auntie Kathy, a girl at swimming--and Eunice," Miriam remembers. "Those are all the people who have kissed me."

The names of the women are shortened in the movie, to the suggestive "Mi" and "Eu." Can they be read as parts of a schizophrenic personality? Or is the story to be taken as it is told, as the record of a madwoman and a dim and trusting one who spend some bleak time together and are able to find a small measure of happiness? I don't know. The movie doesn't defend or glorify them; it simply shows them. How you respond to "Butterfly Kiss" depends on what you bring to it, and how much empathy you are willing to extend to these sad and horrifying women.

Summary by Roger Ebert