The machine has yet to be invented that can tie up all the loose ends in Kantemir Balagov’s third feature, a puzzling family drama set in the small, tight-knit community of Circassians in New Jersey. Such is the intimate nature of Balagov’s film that there’s no real indication of how large this diaspora is, or where these people come from and why; instead, Butterfly Jam zooms in on a fragile father-son relationship that touches on familiar issues of masculinity in crisis but never seems to take them anywhere new.
The most surprising aspect is the casting of Barry Keoghan, 33, as Azik, the father of a stocky 16-year-old, having recently played dad to a younger child in Andrea Arnold’s Bird (2024). Mathematically, it’s certainly within the realm of possibility — especially given Azik’s immaturity and recklessness — and it gets things off to a good start. Indeed, it all begins with the death of a father, as one of the film’s core characters, face unseen, arrives at the home of a professional mourner.
We then cartwheel back in time to a card game being hosted at the diner where Azik works. A mysterious gun-wielding stranger interrupts, announcing a robbery, but it’s a false start — this no gangster, just the return of Azik’s goofy, prodigal friend Marat (Harry Melling), who is promptly wrestled to the ground in a play fight with Azik’s heavy-set teenage son Temir (Talha Akdogan). The next morning, Azik’s sister Zalya (Riley Keough) arrives to find the place a mess, castigating Azik for bringing his “low life” friends around and giving him an hour to make the diner look respectable again.
The dark lighting and hand-held camera suggest a genre film, but, although guns figure prominently, there’s not really much evidence of a neighborhood criminal underworld, like the kinds glimpsed in Mean Streets or even John Cassavetes’ Shadows, two films Butterfly Jam would seem to draw on quite heavily. But Azik and his brother don’t seem to have those kinds of aspirations; Azik wants to be a famous chef, known for his delens (a potato and cheese pie), while Marat just wants to make money, which is what prompts him to buy a secondhand candyfloss machine (of all things).
Azik’s opportunity seems to come with the return of Aslan, an old friend who is dabbling in the restaurant business in Newark. Aslan becomes obsessed with Azik’s delens to the point of dreaming about them, and the opportunity arises to become Aslan’s star chef. Azik is torn, however; though he doesn’t actually show it to her, Azik is loyal to his heavily pregnant sister, whose partner we never actually see. Temir, just on the cusp of adulthood himself, watches his father’s timorousness play out with a mixture of disappointment and disgust. “You’re weak,” he tells Azik, who, after all, is the kind of father that takes his son to see a hooker as a special treat for winning a wrestling match.
Butterfly Jam is packed with detail, mostly about Circassian cuisine. We also learn a see a lot of wrestling, where Temir becomes friends with a young girl whose secret shame is that she has acne on her back and neck. But this freewheeling approach hits a rock just after the hour-mark, where the rule of Chekhov’s gun is put to use, but so obliquely that it leaves the film floundering in its last half-hour stretch. Add to this a stray pelican, which Azik has somehow kidnapped from the beach as a treat for his sister, and a film that began promisingly and precisely ends in an explosion of baffling non-sequiturs.
Keoghan tries his best with the material, but there’s not really much he can do with it. True, there’s a melancholy air of under-achievement in his performance that explains Azik’s obsession with giving a name to his sister’s unborn baby and his vicarious pride in Temir’s sporting achievements. But, like every other character — certainly not Riley Keough’s wafer-thin Zalya — Azik never really comes alive. The title is a clue to the bewilderness about to follow; Azik has a talent for jam-making (“I can make a jam out of anything,” he boasts) and has whipped up a tasty preserve from butterflies. What does this mean? Who knows. Answers on a postcard, please, only one entry per household.
Title: Butterfly Jam
Festival: Cannes (Directors’ Fortnight)
Director/Screenwriter: Kantemir Balagov
Cast: Barry Keoghan, Talha Akdogan, Riley Keough, Harry Melling, Jaliyah Richards
Sales: Goodfellas
Running time: 1 hr 42 mins
