Ashton Kutcher stars as a man who has lost track of time. From an early age, crucial memories have disappeared into a black hole of forgetting, his childhood marred by terrifying events he can't remember. What remains are the ghost of a memory and the terrifying broken lives of his childhood friends ... and an awareness that, somehow, he's responsible in The Butterfly Effect. Throughout his childhood Evan Treborn (Kutcher) was under the care of a psychologist, who encouraged him to keep a journal. Now in college, Evan reads his journal and finds himself thrust suddenly, inexplicably back in time. Determined to correct the tragic events of his youth, Evan alters the past in hopes of transforming the present. But every time Evan makes a change, he returns to a present transformed by unexpected and disastrous consequences of his actions.