All talented directors are allowed an off moment in their careers – and this is the stage arrived at by Kantemir Balagov, whose earlier film Beanpole was such a triumph. This follow-up – his third feature in fact – is his first English language movie, set among the expat Circassian community in New Jersey; it features star names and one colossally self-conscious icon cameo unsubtly signalling cinephile importance. Butterfly Jam is contrived, tonally uncertain, implausible and frankly plain silly in its underpowered kind of magic-unrealism, with some clunky secondhand Mean Streets mob-fraternal dialogue and pedantic ethnic-foodie cred, and elliptically positioning key scenes off camera for no obviously satisfying reason.
Barry Keoghan plays Azik, a widower who with his longsuffering pregnant sister Zalda (Riley Keough) runs a Circassian food diner in Newark; as chef he cooks a sublime delens a delicious cheese and potato dish to his own (secret) recipe, accessorised with delicious jams, one of which, he whimsically announces, is made of butterflies. (He is presumably kidding but he has an amazing touch with the natural world, as we will see.) His teen son Temir (Talga Akdogan) is a talented wrestler who dreams of Olympic glory and he has a sweet crush on fellow wrestler Alika (Jaliyah Richards).
