The Blue Butterfly

Terminally ill 10-year-old Pete Carlton (played by then 15-year-old Marc Donato) wants to do just one thing before he dies: catch the elusive Blue Morpho, said to be the most beautiful butterfly on earth. Renowned entomologist Alan Osborne (William Hurt) helps to make his wish possible by bringing the boy on an expedition into the Costa Rican rainforest. Beautifully shot on location and imbued with the magical quality of a fairytale, Léa Pool's The Blue Butterfly plays like a cross between a National Geographic special and one of those corny disease-of-the-week TV movies, boasting qualities that make for good drama—redemption, courage, love—but without enough genuine conflict or variety of incident to make for gripping viewing. Hurt portrays a jaded scientist with appropriate world-weariness, but Donato's young cancer patient is a bit too saintly even for a film this benign, resulting in a certain sort of mawkishness. Given the dearth of family-friendly films, however, this uneven effort should still be considered a strong optional purchase. (E. Hulse)