An adopted girl discovers her talent for butter carving and finds herself pitted against an ambitious local woman in their Iowa town's annual contest.
Butter is a 2011 American comedy film directed by Jim Field Smith, from a screenplay by Jason Micallef, starring Yara Shahidi, Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, Rob Corddry, Ashley Greene, Alicia Silverstone, and Hugh Jackman. The film is about an Iowa State Fair butter sculpture contest and the competitors and onlookers who attend said contest. It premiered at the 2011 Telluride Film Festival on September 4, 2011, and was released on October 5, 2012 by The Weinstein Company through its RADiUS-TWC distribution arm. The film is said to be a satire of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. Butter received mixed reviews from critics, who questioned Smith's direction of the film's script in terms of humor and satire and the performances from the ensemble cast. The film was a box-office bomb, grossing $175,706 worldwide against a production budget of $10.8 million.