Movie Notes: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

February 23rd, 2009

= 4 stars

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
Directed by David Fincher

Synopsis

In 1918, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born as an old man who ages backwards. He journeys around the world while harboring a life-long love for Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a dancer he met as a young/old boy.

The Good

• Loved the overall look of aged walls, peeling paint, unusual yellow lighting, and different film stock appropriate to time periods. The scenes in Moscow have a fascinating art-deco awareness and others reminded me of the stylized, sophisticated arrangements of Leyendecker.
• CGI technology, used to mesmerizing effect, ages Brad Pitt into an old/young boy. I’m positive other characters got the same treatment, as Cate Blanchett grows from an impossibly thin teenager to an elderly woman. CGI has hit the point where an actor’s appearance on screen is not to be trusted. Yet this visual trickery is justified in service of the story.
• Death is always near as people close to Benjamin pass away — an inevitable result of growing up in an old folk’s home, and his tragic experience in World War II.
• A few sequences have the touch of the masterful director I loved in Zodiac: war footage moving backward, a tugboat charging toward a German submarine, and a sequence of events before a car accident.
• Thank goodness for the consistently solid Blanchett, who displays an admirable elegance throughout, and lends the film’s second half some sorely needed emotion.

The Bad

• Shamefully derivative of Forrest Gump and Titanic. I expected Benjamin to take up shrimping.
• Benjamin remains an enigma throughout, displaying almost zero emotion about his predicament (see a doctor? Cry out in pain at the cruel injustice of his condition? Doesn’t it suck to see your friends die?) and overall remains a frustratingly passive observer to the changing world. It’s no fault of Pitt, since he isn’t given much to work with, but while Tom Hanks created a vastly entertaining character with strange mannerisms who became famous despite being a complete moron, Button keeps his predicament completely private with only one person aware of his odd condition upon his death. In addition, Benjamin never meets the equivalent of “Bubba” or Lieutenant Dan, so a serious amount of human connection is absent.
• Much too long — I kept waiting for some powerful scene that would justify its Best Picture nomination — it never arrived.

Conclusion

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is occasionally mesmerizing in terms of look, feel, and ambition, but ultimately, without a compelling main character, I can’t say it took that final step to affect me emotionally. That’s my criteria for a five star movie, and as a result, it only earns four.

IMDB: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Wikipedia: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Rotten Tomatoes: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button