Loosely adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) from a F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is a high-concept fantasy-drama directed by David Fincher, whose perfectionism and an epic runtime slowly drains this modern fairytale of its magical potential. I guess it began life as a short story for a reason...Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is the eponymous hero, born the son of an affluent New Orleans entrepreneur whose mother dies after his delivery, to the backdrop of celebrations for the end of WWI. The victim of an abnormality that gives him the biology of a geriatric, "disfigured" baby Benjamin is abandoned on the doorstep of a nursing home run by benevolent black couple Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and Tizzy (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali). There, Benjamin grows up amongst the elderly residents, surprising everyone by aging in reverse to them. It's not long before Benjamin's a small boy trapped in the body of a lame pensioner, then a hormonal teenager with the veneer of a middle-aged virgin, etc...
As a metaphorical, intentionally-faulty clock runs backwards in a New Orleans train station (and a hummingbird motif fulfils the feather's role from Gump), Benjamin lives his life backwards to the best of his ability -- cursed to watch his friends wither and die as he becomes stronger, fitter and wiser. Benjamin strikes a childhood friendship with a girl called Daisy (Elle Fanning) at the nursing home, who sees something special in his wrinkled juvenility, before they're reacquainted in adulthood -- poster boy Pitt tearing up the '50s astride a Harley, free to romance ballet teacher Daisy (Cate Blanchett) without worrying about ageist raised eyebrows. Of course, fears of a toddler/granny marriage put a dampener on their long-term plans...
Visually, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is a treat of production design under Fincher's ever-meticulous eye, and a benchmark for visual FX that turn 45-year-old hunk Brad Pitt into a diminutive, wrinkled gnome during its first act. A great example of subtle CGI-assisted make-up that, despite the clear trickery on display, somehow refuse to draw too draw attention to itself -- a la Gary Sinise's paraplegic in Forrest Gump. Oh, there's that film mentioned again. Yes, the shadow of Robert Zemeckis' 1994 Oscar-winner looms over Benjamin Button, which certainly has much in common with that Tom Hanks movie, not least a shared screenwriter. Button and Gump are both likeable characters whose determination is enough to conquer their mental/physical deficiencies and propel them to success, despite their handicaps.
The main problem is that, unlike Gump, Button doesn't really have much of a struggle when you stop to think about it. A life lived in reverse is actually preferable, surely. "Youth is wasted on the young", and all that. The most physically painful part of Benjamin's existence occurred when he's newborn (and nobody remembers those years), and every day thereafter he gets progressively healthier and more handsome. After two decades playing dominoes with old folk, his situation is actually something to be envied. Who wouldn't want Brad Pitt's physique at the age of 18?
Weirdly too, the film opts to zip through the stages of Benjamin's autumnal youth -- where he'd be a septuagenarian going through puberty, in reverse! -- perhaps because it demands the absence of its leading man, or requires a level of FX beyond reach? Regardless, Benjamin Button fudged a fascinating chapter I spent the film waiting to be tackled head-on. As something of a salve, I did like the handling of Benjamin's touching end -- even if, logically, he should have become an adult fetus and begged Daisy to blow a hole through his cranium, Fly-style. Oh for a "body-horror" reinterpretation, courtesy of Cronenberg, hm?
Performances are fine across the board, but while Pitt succeeds in playing an old man convincingly, his character's devolution isn't handled that well. Benjamin's prime results in an inevitable plateau of acting, with Pitt just being Pitt with lessening prosthetics in every other scene, but I never got the impression that Benjamin was becoming a wise and mature fellow beyond his apparent years. A difficult acting challenge for anyone, Pitt nevertheless failed to articulate the mental/physical divergence of his character over the course of the film. Cate Blanchett was okay and there was thankfully enough chemistry with Pitt to ensure the Benjamin/Daisy courtship didn't become tedious, but it was certainly not the epic love-story it could have been. Thus, it wasn't as heart wrenching as it could have been, even with the narrative trick of the story being a flashback reading of Benjamin's diary to the elderly Daisy from a hospital in the path of Hurricane Katrina -- the symbolism of which I still can't quite determine.
Overall, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is something of a disappointment given the massive potential of its brilliant premise. Hopes for a sublime, epic, emotional and intelligent meditation on love and mortality aren't dashed, but they're definitely curbed. Instead, Fincher delivers visually rich, mildly engaging Oscar bait without much edge, content to trace the broad strokes of Forrest Gump with a Twilight Zone element. Benjamin even has a coming-of-age experience aboard a boat with a salty ol' sea dog, although there's no fishing for shrimp.
directed by: David Fincher written by: Eric Roth (based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald) starring: Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button), Cate Blanchett (Daisy Fuller), Elle Fanning (Daisy Fuller, age 6), Madisen Beaty (Daisy Fuller, age 11), Taraji P. Henson (Queenie), Julia Ormond (Caroline Fuller), Jason Flemyng (Thomas Button), Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (Tizzy Weathers), Jared Harris (Captain Mike), Elisa Koteas (Monsieur Gateau), Ed Metzger (Theodore Roosevelt), Phyllis Somerville (Grandma Fuller), Josh Stewart (Pleasant Curtis), Tilda Swinton (Elizabeth Abbott), Bianca Chiminello (Daisy's Friend), Rampai Mohadi (Ngundu Oti), Edith Ivey (Mrs. Maple) & Tim Harvey (Soda Jerk) / Paramount Pictures / 165 mins. / $160 million (budget) / www.benjaminbutton.com
