Customer Reviews

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Single-Disc Edition)

5 star:		(135)
4 star:		(60)
3 star:		(37)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

The Curious Case of Benjamim Button is by no means a feel-good movie. In fact upon watching it, I felt depressed even the next day just thinking about it. People may confuse this for a love story but to me the film clearly symbolizes death. The love aspect is certainly present, though it is not the center of attention here.

Brad Pitt stars as Benjamin Button, a man who essentially ages backwards. When he is born, his own father attempts to drown him before a sudden change of heart has him leaving the swaddled and very whithered newborn upon the steps of an elderly home. There he is found by Queenie, played to motherly perfection by Taraji P. Henson. She sees past the deformity and oddity and loves him immediately.

Instead of dying, as a doctor predicted, Benjamin actually begins to age backwards. He appears as a very old man and slowly grows younger, but only in body. His mind seems to function as a typical human's mind. He learns, and dreams and experiences. This basically sets up the magnificent story and from then on, you are taken from country to country, from one decade, to another and it is just superb to witness.

The acting is fantastic all around. Brad Pitt does an outstanding job, portraying both the old Benjamin as well as his younger counterpart. Cate Blanchett as his childhood friend/love interest is also a joy to watch. She can do no wrong, she is simply stunning. For such a short part, Tilda Swinton surely makes the most of it. Her tale and part with Benjamin in Russia is just stunning. There is also the talented Julia Ormond, who has a bigger part to play in the tale than we may realise at first.

The most impressive aspect of the film is the flawless visual effects. Just flawless. You have never seen aging/deaging done like this. There is a scene, towards the end, with Benjamin and Daisy (Blanchett) that had my jaw dropping. It was like looking back in time. I can't describe how utterly impressed I was. The cinematography, the sad musical score, the costumes, just every little minute detail is just so impressive and authentic.

I have heard grumbles from people who compare it to Forrest Gump. What? How? There should not be any comparing the two films-or the two characters. Gump was a slow and mostly ignorant person who fell into unbelievable situations. Button clearly chooses his own paths, though it may not seem it, at the beginning. It irritates me how someone can make such a comparison.

This is a long film, nearly three hours, though with the plot and subject matter, it makes sense and really, it is such a beautiful film, you hardly notice the passing of time. Like I mentioned, it will leave you feeling blue but that does not diminish from the fact this is one of the better newer films out there now, and one that people will remember in the future.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has such a high concept that some people were thrown off. Even major critics like Roger Ebert bashed the film as a whole based only upon his thought that the concept made it a film that no one could ever relate to. I wholeheartedly disagree, and am a little disappointed that after so many years of reading Ebert's reviews, that he's limiting his scope by writing off concepts that, to him, just can't work, especially when this film makes its concept work so brilliantly. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a brooding, sweepingly epic tale about--no surprises here--Benjamin Button, who was born as an old man and will age backwards until he is once again an infant. While this is certainly never the case in life, the unusualness of it even more poignant, because it still does, in a way, mirror real life. When Benjamin Button becomes a boy after years of "growing down," he will begin to lose his memories the same way an elderly man with Alzheimer's would. Truthfully, it is a high concept that perhaps would have been one of those "huge idea, not so much story" films in different hands, but screenwriter Eric Roth and director David Fincher made a film that transcends even this looming premise.

The movie has a sort of Burtonesque whimsy, though it is textured in a way that none of his films are. The film is almost three hours long, and it's such a busy three hours that it feels more like four. There is a framing story, in which a dying woman and her daughter read the diary of Benjamin. These may be considered the weakest parts of the story, but it also comes together nicely in the end. All of the various characters that Benjamin meets along the way are so interesting and so well thought out. There's a man who gets struck by lightning seven times (we see six of these through hilarious flashbacks), a woman who wants to break a swimming record but is limited by her age, a drunken captain who opens up his world to carnal pleasures, and a whole lot of other characters who you will fall in love with over the course of the film. Many people die, because death--one way (old age) or the other (youth)--is sort of the whole point behind this film. People come into your life and one way or another, they leave. And they leave an imprint. The film is such a weird way to tackle the premise but it's so deliciously inventive and brilliantly made that its weirdness plays a central role in its overall greatness.

One of the better movies of 2008, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a universally enjoyable film that I suspect it will be even better to watch on DVD when one can take a bit of a break between scenes. The length, and the war scene, will definitely lose some viewers for a while, but everything that comes before and everything that follows is so fantastic that you'll definitely catch back up with it.

8/10

This is, while a technically brilliant piece of filmmaking that fully exploits all the wizardry of CGI and makeup of which the filmmaker's art is now capable, strangely hollow at the center. One begins the movie expecting some profound truths about human existence to be explored, but it ends not with a big life-affirming bang, but more of a whimper, quite literally. Benjamin says though his diary at one point: "Life is defined by opportunities--even the ones we miss." And that could be a sum-up of this film project as a whole, as well as the life of the bizarre hero at its center. One gets the sense of promise grasped for here but not quite realized as the technical and stylistic gymnastics of this movie overwhelm the fragile love story that should be its beating heart.

The film opens with Mr. Gateau (Cake) constructing a magical clock that runs backwards and mounting it in a train station in New Orleans in honor of his son, dead in the Great War. No mention is made again of Mr. Gateau or whether his clock was successful in rewinding time to bring dead boys back to life. It does have a curious effect on the life of one boy, though, as Benjamin enters the world essentially running backwards. As other reviewers have pointed out, it's quizzical that the clock has this metaphysical effect on only Benjamin among all the other children born afterwards, but then, fantasy is not required to operate by the rules of logic. Perhaps Benjamin, with a Gullah mother was particularly susceptible to magic, and how serendipitous that old-man baby Benjamin's grieving father abandoned him, along with $18 on the steps of an old-folks home, rather than say, a brothel . . .this being New Orleans, after all. What are the chances, outside the realm of fantastical fiction, furthermore that Benjamin's progenitor be named Mr. Button, and that he own a button factory? Otherwise we wouldn't have such nifty alliteration.

Countless comparisons have been made to "Forrest Gump", with which this narrative does share structural similarities. However, that didn't occur to me while I was watching and found instead resonance with one of Pitt's earlier characters, Tristan Ludlow from "Legends of the Fall"--like Benjamin, Tristan is a soul set apart, blessed or cursed with mystical powers he does not fully understand; uncomfortable among other people and destined to lose the true love of his life due to his own inability to live a normal life. Scenes of Benjamin travelling to foreign shores and sailing a boat underscored this impression. (The presence of Julia Ormond, here playing the adult daughter of the aged Daisy was just a bonus, since she and Pitt have no scenes together.) The setting of New Orleans during Benjamin's childhood in the early decades of the last century also reminded me of Louis Malle's "Pretty Baby".

This film is technically dazzling, but I think it was justly deprived of the top acting awards. With so much else to be distracted by, the acting had a job of it to even be noticed, really. Cate Blanchett is luminous, as usual. I had my doubts a 38-year-old mother of three could pull off a 23-year-old ballerina, but La Blanchett can do anything. The greatest curiosity I had, to be honest, was in how they were going to make Brad Pitt look 18 again. Brad has taken pretty good care of his body over the years, but the strain of being father to the United Tribe of Benetton is starting to show . . .at least when he's not on a movie set. When he's lit and coiffed for a film, he does not look anything like a 46-year-old father of six. He can easily pass for a decade younger . . .but I thought 18 would be pushing it. Well . . . did I say that the makeup department is amazing?? Looking at the scene of an 18-year-old Benjamin coming to visit the now-58-year-old Daisy--wow. It was like having a flashback to Mr. Pitt's debut in "Thelma & Louise", and it was a very unsettling feeling. "Unsettling" is the best descriptor for this movie. Parts of it were stunning to look at, but its tragic meditations on the ultimate inablity of love to bring any meaning to human life leaves you wrung out and uncertain whether you are better off having seen it than you were before.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a wonderfully staged fantasy based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's fantasy about a boy born old and aging younger instead of older. The story could obviously be off-putting and distracting, but everyone involved does such a magnificent job of telling this story that it is not hard to accept this as fact, and following the story as it shows Benjamin growing younger and falling in love with a young girl named Daisy.

Benjamin and Daisy's story and the balance of Benjamin's life impart so many valuable life lessons that it is hard to recount them all - the idea that life brings many hardships and the best we can do is doing the best we can with what we're given, making the most of every moment because life is fleeting and unpredictable, find the joy and happinessin life and hold on to it dearly, and many other lessons.

"Benjamin Button" gives Brad Pitt the chance to shine in the title role, and he makes the most of it. He is ably assisted by Cate Blanchett as Daisy, Taraji P. Henson as Benjamin's adoptive mother, Tilda Swinton as another love of Benjamin's, and many others. This film is marvelous and a hopeful fable for all of us.

Visually, this is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Every period in the film, from the roaring '20s of Benjamin's earliest years, to the 1960s when he lived briefly with the girl of his dreams, are captured almost perfectly onscreen. The cinematography is practically flawless. The film is so wonderfully atmospheric it's almost worth watching for that alone. The special effects are remarkable as well. At different points in the film, both Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt are made to look roughly twenty years younger than their actual ages. This is relatively new in film. It's been possible since the medium began to age actors with makeup, but now it's also possible to de-age them through the magic of CGI. So where it would once have only been possible to make this film using very young actors to play the leads, and use make up to age them into their 40s and 50s and beyond, they can now cast established stars in their 40s and still have them convincingly play characters just out of their teens. The technical wizardry behind this is amazing, and it's yet another example of the magic of the movies.

So on technical merits alone I'd give the film 5 out of 5 stars. Unfortunately, the story does not quite live up to that high standard. It's not bad, to be sure; I did enjoy the movie, but I couldn't help wonder, at the end of it all, what the point was. As the reviewer for the Sunday Times aptly put it: "It's a gimmick that goes on for nearly three hours." Now I don't think every story has to have a moral, or a great message, or all kinds of weighty allusions and themes, and so forth. But simple, escapist entertainment just works better as a comedy or an action piece. A moody, character-driven drama, one can't help but feel, ought to have a little more to say. This movie, enjoyable as it is, seems like nothing more than an exercise in "what if" thinking -- what if a man could age backward? What would that be like? Storywise, the film seems to have nothing to offer beyond that, and one really doesn't need a 2 1/2 hour film to spell out all the sorrowful ramifications of such a scenario.

Still, the film is good for an evening's entertainment, and is a feast for the eyes. Cate Blanchett is nearly always worth watching, and Pitt gives a very good performance as well.

Why is this film dull? Could it be that the characters are empty, and that they passively coast through the story, meekly awaiting their fate? The fact that Ben Button is growing younger might be expected to twist his psychology in an interesting way: unfortunately we are given no insight into this psychology. He takes the first manual job that comes along, a business is bequeathed to him, and his imagination is limited to pursuing his childhood sweetheart - all this challenges him to the most minimal degree, and he is asked to make virtually no interesting decisions. Yes, he is growing younger, but this seems to make almost no impact upon him, nor upon those around him. The character appears to be a very unreflective and retiring person; what's more, Brad Pitt delivers a performance that is curious in being bereft of emotion - was he afraid of ruining his elaborate make-up? Kate Blanchett's character has a bit more spunk, but her restlessness is extinguished mid-film, and she too is reduced to a pretty well silent witness to proceedings from then on. There is virtually no internal, nor much external, conflict between the protagonists, nor between them and the world.

All this amounts to an idea in search of a story. Imagine if you were asked to watch a monkey being born old, then slowly growing younger as time went on, until finally petering out. As a three minute video on Youtube this would be (kind of) interesting. If it went on for three hours, I don't think many viewers would last the distance. Without a story, the novelty wears thin - as is the case here.

Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a man born old who ages backwards as the years pass, so that when he dies, he's an infant. Cate Blanchett is his love interest but there didn't seem to be much chemistry between the two. I also didn't like her character - she seemed too self-absorbed. I guess I thought this would be along the lines of Forest Gump, showing historical events that coincided with Button's life, and it does this only in a minor way. Pitt does a good job with the role and his narrative adds dimension. Tilda Swinton is fabulous and carries this movie. The ending is, of course, a sad one, so beware.

After all the hype around this movie, I was really looking forward to suspending reality for a couple of hrs and becoming engrossed in a great story. I was very disappointed in the result. Whilst no doubt a very strong cast in Brad Pitt and Kate Blanchett and a storyline that should transcend to the big screen, something got lost along the way. The film traced the life of a man born old and aging to become young. I found the film too long and for me it 'died' half-way through. That was the point where I stopped caring about Mr.Button, and could very easily have switched off. I perservered and staying to the end and though it did resurrect itself, I had already become bored with it. The film is too long and what should have been great became very average.

I was -like many other people- willing to like this movie, but it manages to disappoint consistently for all but its last 15 minutes.

The cosmic reasons for Benjamin's backward aging are never explained (the clock at the train station is NOT an explanation - since one would rationally assume that several babies would have been born that same night in the city with the same condition as he). It is nothing more than a gimmick since neither existential issues nor insights are drawn from his surprisingly uninteresting life. The writing doesn't help much since when it tries to be deep or insightful that's precisely the impression it gives; that it is trying.

The main acting talent in this movie is absolutly top-notch. Pitt delivers consistently and this movie was no exception. Taraji Henson is truthful (if a little restrained) and Cate Blanchett is without a doubt one of the best film actors of her generation. Yet, it is the vague movie direction by David Fincher (who was great in Zodiac) which wastes the talent in what could have been an epic movie.

Characters move through the movie without clear motivations or objectives and often seem not to be affected by what happens to them. Button's obstinacy in loving Daisy should be the backbone of the movie, but when faced by the prospect of being a father while growing younger he leaves without considering alternatives, and Daisy doesn't even put up much of a fight! Parents would do anything to avoid their child's suffering, but why did Benjamin never consider that due to his own extraordinary circumstances, his child would just have to live an unusual life? Wouldn't his child be better served by having a mature parent for at least 11 years of her life than not having him at all? How many parents who die prematurely would not give anything to spend a little more time with their kids? These are not easy questions to answer but the movie doesn't bother to ask them, either.

The movie spends a good amount of celluloid telling a story in the longest, most roundabout way possible. At first, still giving it a chance I focused more on the atmosphere being created, but there wasn't much there either. Benjamin joins a ship, has an affair and faces one battle in WWII and doesn't seemed changed by any of it, because he apparently thinks his life is less interesting than even we do. When he comes back home, the level of his joy at seeing Queenie (his "mom") would tell one he's been gone only a week and not a few years... at war! I blame this not on Pitt's or Henson's acting but on Fincher's direction. While one could make the concession that living in a home where people constantly died made Benjamin less willing to become attached to anyone, that would also mean that it makes the character less interesting, since apathy is not a quality one wishes to see in a main character.

To boot, while the story of his life is being pieced together by diary entries (thus obviously from a first person perspective) when narrating how Daisy's accident came to end her dancing career; Benjamin momentarily develops an omniscient narrative; he knows every single detail of what led to it (one is left wondering why he didn't use that omniscience in preventing an eventual pregnancy that he apparently never wanted to happen). The narrative itself is interesting but it violates the premise the movie had already established.

The bad choices made in this film are many but the final fifteen minutes almost make one say it makes up for them. The final scene of Benjamin's life, when Daisy narrates his final moments and the absolutly loving, heartbreaking way in which she covers the face of the dead baby Benjamin in her arms, is the most beautiful scene I have seen in any movie. She was being a mother to the man who once was her husband and Blancett nailed every single gesture and emotion when taking care of young Benjamin. Blanchett is amazing.

The movie goes on to tie Daisy's own passing to the Katrina disaster, which also destroys the clock (which never stopped running and is now relegated to a basement). A montage follows in which the people who touched Benjamin's life are seen doing what they did, but it doesn't seem to mean much and the viewer is thrown back into vagueness. One is left wondering, after almost three hours of watching, what was it exactly that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button wanted to say.

This movie is one of my new favorites. It keeps you intruiged and I felt emotionally connected to all of the characters introduced in the movie. I have suggested it to friends and will be watching again soon!!