The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
posted November 25, 2008 5:12 PM
Languid and epic, if perhaps not as curious
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie share a profession, a bottomless vial of hotness and a battery of kids, but there’s something else they share: a passion for literary material long considered unfilmable. Jolie has been trying for years to launch a big-screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist bible Atlas Shrugged. The project, whose source material is over 1,000 pages, has suffered more false starts than a drunken track meet. So Pitt, whose good looks and tabloid ubiquity obscure his Oscar-nominated acting talent, wins the couple’s Impossible Adaptation Contest (loser buys the winner a continent) with this long-awaited big screen version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story from 1922. Fitzgerald’s tale chronicles a man who is born elderly and ages backwards, until he dies at birth when “his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind.” Few directors could have tackled the film’s daunting visual requirements as brilliantly as David Fincher (Zodiac) has. But emotionally, Fincher’s movies are always cool to the touch and this one is no different. The lack of convincing emotional sweep blunts the impact of an otherwise marvelous picture. Expect solid numbers at the outset, followed by fans gobbling up the DVD to learn how Fincher’s amazing team earned the Visual Effects Oscar that is undoubtedly coming their way.
Benjamin Button’s decades-spanning, cradle-to-grave timeframe recalls 1994’s Best Picture Oscar winner Forrest Gump, so it’s fitting (if a bit obvious) that the script would be assigned to Gump screenwriter Eric Roth. The writer (who also penned The Insider and Munich) has retained very little of Fitzgerald’s original story, save for the main character’s alliterative name and the aging-backwards concept. And it’s a testament to our involvement in the story that our attention is not eaten up by wondering how they’ll make Brad Pitt look 70 years old. We accept it at the character level, not critique it on a technology level. In Fitzgerald’s story, Benjamin enters the world as a fully grown, elderly man, complete with beard and full vocabulary. In a major departure from the source material (one of many smart departures), Benjamin is born a baby, but one suffering from arthritis, cataracts and other ravages of age. Benjamin’s horrified father (Jason Flemyng) places the newborn on the doorstep of a New Orleans rest home, where he’s accepted (“he looks just like my ex-husband” says one of the old ladies) and raised by Queenie (wonderful Taraji P. Henson) an African-American employee. Benjamin spends his childhood at the home, where he drinks in the wisdom of the aged residents, learns to walk with the help of a faith healer and meets Daisy, the pre-teen granddaughter of a rest home live-in who’ll become the defining presence of his life.
Considering what the part required, Pitt’s performance is amazingly unadorned and natural, to the point where it’s easy to overlook the achievement. Using motion capture technology, he plays Benjamin across the decades, from a bald and bespectacled, wheelchair-bound ten-year old, to a youthful, fresh-faced old man. In between, he embodies one of the film’s major themes: how the human experience will always contain joy and pain, laughter and sorrow, whether you age forwards or backwards. “It really does not make a difference,” Benjamin says, “as long as we’ve lived our lives well.” And appropriately, his condition neither compounds, nor spares him, life’s difficulties. During World War II, Benjamin serves on a tugboat (echoes of Forrest Gump’s shrimp boat, save for the exciting battle against an enemy sub), then travels to New York, where Daisy (Cate Blanchett, from young adulthood forward) has become a ballerina and is currently dating another dancer. Eventually, Benjamin and Daisy meet at that crucial moment when their ages match and their desire peaks.
As Daisy, Blanchett makes sizable dents in the masculine layers of Fincher’s style and provides some warmth to a picture lacking in such. This is no small thing, since Fincher’s heretofore most successful stab at character-driven emotion was Pitt’s reaction to seeing Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box at the end of Se7en. Not surprising for this most wonderful of actors, Blanchett does exceptional work wearing old age makeup. Benjamin’s story is told in flashback as the elderly Daisy lay dying in a New Orleans hospital while her daughter (Julia Ormond) reads Benjamin’s secret diary. Roth, whose script features none of the sentimentality of Forrest Gump, even manages to work in Hurricane Katrina, as another reminder of nature’s cruel indifference. Straying way off Fitzgerald’s blueprint, Roth also supplies a couple of brilliant interludes, none better than his take on how fate can depend upon a succession of tiny events involving random people that must line up with a watchmaker’s precision. He also tempers the story’s inherent magical realism with sobering doses of reality that bring into relief the underlying uniqueness of Benjamin’s existence. Indeed, although Roth worked off existing texts for both Benjamin Button and Forrest Gump, the former is the more impressive achievement. Yet Fincher still can’t convey a strong enough sense that Benjamin and Daisy are fated to be together yet destined to be apart. The sepia-colored footage, rich production design (by Donald Graham Burt) and simple, beautiful score (by Alexandre Desplat) can’t paper over an epic romance that just isn’t epic enough. Benjamin is just too accepting of his life for the audience to respond to him with overwhelming reserves of empathy. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe in his quest for experience and his capacity for love, Benjamin Button’s case wasn’t really curious at all.
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
Screenplay: Eric Roth; based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Director: David Fincher
Producers: Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Cean Chaffin
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13 for brief war violence, sexual content, language and smoking
Running time: 167 minutes
Release date: December 25, 2008
25 Comments
Leave a comment
Anonymous said:
"bald and bespectacled, wheelchair-bound ten-year old, to a youthful, fresh-faced old man."
Where's the editor?
December 10, 2008 10:13 PM
Johnnie said:
I saw the movie.
It's accurate.
When he's born, he's a tiny baby with wrinkles and arthritis.
Since he's aging backwards, when he's old, his looks become more youthful.
I take it you didn't see the movie and you just like saying bad things?
December 11, 2008 10:27 AM
fleaflicker said:
He's talking about the grammar.
December 19, 2008 1:02 PM
Amazed said:
Best Picture of the Year despite the jaded tone and nit picking, subtly negative tone of this reviewer 'Mark Keizer'. (May I ask what your comment 'a bottomless vial of hotness and a battery of kids' has to do with anythng but your attempt at humor or need to complete a review of 'x' # of words? Indeed, did you metion Jolie only for the attention her name might grab?).
The movie engages and connects and time flies by (no pun intended). Outstanding understated work by Brad Pitt as a great counterpoint to Cate. Excellent supporting work by all and set design, costumes, all brilliant.
Can't wait to see it again and despite the comment above about box office expectations and dvd sales, it is tuly a fine film and deserving of an much wider audience. I believe we may be pleasantly surprised by it's reception.
December 19, 2008 2:18 PM
Abacus said:
Heven't seen it .. yet.. but "manages to work in Hurricane Katrina".. is already a turn off for me.. So it goes..
December 19, 2008 5:23 PM
Christopher said:
Amazed,
Remember when Jolie carried Billy Bob Thornton's blood in a vial around her neck?
I'm sure that's what the reference meant.
December 19, 2008 6:18 PM
Mimi said:
Saw the movie. It is long and boring. Pitt's talent is overlooked because he doesn't have any. He doesn't utter more than two or three words at a time. Special effects are good. Otherwise, not worth the ticket price.
December 26, 2008 1:54 PM
Ashley said:
This movie was breathtaking! I thought it was beautiful; the scenery, the story, the acting. Everything was perfect. It's definately one of the best movies that I have seen in a long time. Definate must see!
December 27, 2008 8:46 PM
Bruce said:
Just saw it and it was Great!!! I had no Idea how long it was before I went, I was so absorbed in it, that I did not realize how long it was untill I got out and in my car and saw it was 10:10 I first thoug that my clock was wrong, but at McDonalds I saw there clock was 10:20, wow it was a 3 hour movie! It did not sem like it, as it went quick!! I am 50 and a man, I have never cried at a movie, but there is a tender self sacraficing moment a few years after they meet in there 40s, that was outstanding. The story is freash idea well done, this picture is full of emotion, adventure, well worth seeing!!!
December 27, 2008 10:41 PM
hecxs said:
Is that it?
So much buzz for this??
It's a good movie...not best picture oscar caliber. Something got lost between the main premise of the original story to the translation to the big screen. For me it was just another movie...the movie creators didn't exploit the story's potential...at all!!!
December 28, 2008 5:26 AM
berg said:
I hate liberals.
December 28, 2008 1:58 PM
Mi said:
This movie was a masterpiece. There wasn't a boring moment at all.
December 31, 2008 7:40 AM
Anonymous said:
Great movie, a group of us took our daughters and they loved it as much as we did. I was surprised by how many men were in the audience. Major date movie. Brad Pitt is a talented actor, look at Kalifornia and 12 Monkey's, Fight Club, he's always better when his looks are hidden.
January 1, 2009 4:27 PM
Anonymous said:
great production, and a complete lack of emotional connection. coud not get involved with the characters.also, why does ben leave ? what an idiot. since roth ignored most of the original story, he should have made him stay and let them grow old/young together. now that would have been interesting. just your typical hollywood crap, fincher or not, that is common fare today. boy do i miss 'an affair to remember'. they just have lost their ability to make good movies. and yes, f*** cgi. i couldn't care less.
January 2, 2009 9:04 PM
AJ said:
Not bad... a little draggy but otherwise okay.
January 4, 2009 1:08 PM
Freely said:
HAHAHA that review was rubbish. I hope you weren't paid for that.
Acting (and dancing) was on point though did anyone catch that Blanchett's feet were all bloody and nasty yet she wasn't dancing pointe ballet? Still, I am grateful that Hollywood finally found an actress that has is classically trained and TALENTED (compare to Julia Stiles in "Save the Last Dance"). Blanchett also looked stunning, old and young.
I think it would have been more powerful if the story just presented itselt rather than being narrated - reminded me too much of the freakin Titanic movie. Also reminds me of a play, what was it called? The Last Five Years I think? If you liked the concept of this movie, I recommend seeing that.
I was actually living two blocks away from the set at 2nd Ave in the New Orleans Garden District (instantaneously stalking Bradley) so I really feel connected to this movie and was able to appreciate the stunning cinematography...and the shot of Brad riding a motorcycle, phew!!! Can I also say that Brad finally did an accent justice? Perhaps living in New Orleans worked out well for him in this film...if only he would've lived in Tibet, Ireland and wherever they speak Swahili as well...
January 4, 2009 8:16 PM
Maggie said:
Stupendous acting. Incredible filming and fantastic settings. Allegories a tad overdone - could have definitely done without the hummingbird humming over the ocean. But W*O*W the make up department certainly excelled.
To care for one another is the over riding message I came away with.
However, anything Cate Blanchett does is brilliant and I'm still in a state of disbelief re the Curious Case of her not winning the Oscar for Elizabeth I.
January 5, 2009 5:59 AM
.. said:
While watching this movie, i dont think i felt boredom once.
January 6, 2009 3:55 AM
SOSHIANS said:
WONERFULL.....ANOTHER GRATE OF DAVID FINCHER MY
FAVORITE DIRECTOR FFFFAAAANNNNTTTAAASSSSTTTTIIIICCCC
January 11, 2009 8:06 AM
dave said:
So..when he dies is it in the form of an orgasm?
January 13, 2009 5:44 PM
trance power said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NFSrwWJWyk
January 13, 2009 6:04 PM
Peanut said:
Movies are movies and books (or in this case, short stories) are books and by their nature are different.
Loved this movie, it's many laywers and it's messages. Cate and Tariji are incredible and so of course, is Brad.
January 16, 2009 1:45 PM
liz said:
I saw the movie and I thought it was great. Everything was well executed.
January 19, 2009 9:03 AM
Andrew said:
If my wife hadn't wanted to stay to the end, I would have walked out and done something more interesting like watch the popcorn line. Afterwards, she told me she found it really slow and uninteresting. This movie is a total waste of (what seems like) 12 hours. It should be renamed "Benjamin Boredom". We would have tried to get refunds but we felt like such abject, hapless suckers. It left me wishing dispassionately that I could have turned my own clock back a couple of hours.
This movie is based on such a asinine premise that I found myself rolling my eyes and tutting whenever I wasn't nodding off. The best bit, unquestionably, was when the titles came up at the end.
I find it incredible that this drivel should be nominated for Oscars over Gran Turino which has a great and plausible story with far better acting. There must be a billion people with much more meaningful real life stories than Benjamin Bleedin' Bollocks--you don't have to insult everyone's intelligence with the grow-young twist for God's sake, Hollywood.
January 22, 2009 10:59 AM
Anonymous said:
Andrew,
Are you freaking crazy? I don't want to reduce myself to insults, but seriously, do you have ADD? Possibly you couldn't concentrate that hard, or that long, as to appreciate the wonderful F. Scott Fitzgerald story masterfully executed. Not only was it anything but boring, it was enchanting the whole way through and left me thinking about the multiple layers of plot for days.
I do agree with you, though, Gran Turino was fantastic as well. FINALLY there are a hand full of great films out.
January 22, 2009 4:02 PM