"... all the time you were trying to make me good all you had to do was turn bad yourself ..."

Part love story, part roadkill, this driving butch/fern buddy pic is as bizarre as they come-a very black comedy. It is a severe depar­ture from Michael Winterbottom's recent televi­sion work, specifically the excellent Family. More of a motor-way movie than a road movie—it is Britain after all—Butterfly Kiss crawls the desolate spaces of roadside way stations and lost souls.

From laneway limbo comes Eunice (Amanda Plummer pulls off a coup keeping this character from spinning out of control), a harbinger of vio­lent change, travelling the highways searching for the elusive 'Judith' of her dreams only to find mousey and pliable Miriam (a down beat Saskia Reeves). The mania and dangerous energy that pulsates through the twitchy Eunice allows noth­ing to stand in her way and though it may also be a kind of low-rent love at first sight, it is certainly sex on the first night—with Miriam's invalid mum unceremoniously tossed out of the double bed. A torrid, if rather matter of fact, love making ses­sion is merely a precursor of what is to come as this decidedly bizzare couple head off down the wrong road to redemption leaving more than the odd bit of litter strewn by the wayside.