The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
REVIEW
On an early morning, when my eyes are still heavy from sleep and I can’t quite force myself out of bed, I am thankful when I realize I have nowhere to rush off too and am able to let me body lay heavy and just enjoy the warmth of my comforter. These mornings don’t happen often enough but when they do I have the perfect movie to set the mood for my day. It is a film with a sense of calm that tells us a unique love story filled with timeless wisdom and fantastic elements. This is the story of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
There is an ease to this movie which always seems to leave me with a peace of mind. There is no heavy lifting to be done but rather gentle reminders of the beautiful moments through out life that we typically lose with the passing of time. We are guided from the birth to the death of an unusual character named Benjamin Button. Benjamin is born as an old man and he ages in reverse. Yes, he gets to live his final years of a life as a child. There is nothing beyond extraordinary about Benjamin except for his unusual condition. Other than that he is a simple man who barely speaks above a whisper and observes his life and the characters who come in and out of it with wides eyes and a curious mind.
Brad Pitt portrays the character of Benjamin as a simple yet complex man who is never overrun with emotion. He looks as though he is a child taking in the complexities of the world like a puzzle he is trying to figure out. He is not quit sure of his place in the world. All he knows is he is different. He does not force himself onto people or seek out fame for his unique condition, he is simply in his place, living his life noticing the things that bring him comfort or bring him pain and just like the rest of us moves through his life one day at a time. Pitt shows his range with this character by simply being. All the pain and joy he experiences are expressed with just a glimmer in his eye.
Benjamin’s counterpoint through out the film is the love of his life Daisey, portrayed by the beautiful Cate Blanchett. Daisy and Benjamin meet while they are young, Benjamin of course looking like and old man of 80 and Daisy a fresh faced 7. Their unique story spans a lifetime, separated by either choice or circumstance they always come back to one another. We see them both enjoy life on their own terms. Daisy grows from a young girl to beautiful woman who travels with world as a world class ballerina. Benjamin sees the world while working on a tug boat. When Daisey is in her 20’s she is wild and free caught up in the whirl wind of her youth. Benjamin an older looking man at this point in her life is unable to keep up and pushed aside. It isn’t until they are both middle aged when they finally come together and seem to settle in but it is not meant to last long as Benjamin is still getting younger and Daisy still growing older. It is such a unique and fantastic love story. We are brought along on their journey with all the high’s and lows and though some truths about their love are universal some are unique to their story alone.
David Fincher directs this film and he would not be the typical choice for this sort of movie. Typically Fincher takes on psychological thrillers with characters and visuals that cut to the bone and transport his viewers to darker more uncomfortable parts of the mind. With Benjamin Button, Fincher brings his unique style and gorgeous visuals to a movie that in another filmmakers hands could have tripped over itself into cheesy melodrama. Fincher is a master storyteller. He is able to build suspense through subtle character interaction and his visuals are so engaging and stunning that he was able to give this film the edge it needed so that the character of Benjamin could simply observe and live his life without trying to entertain.
A majority of Benjamin’s story takes place in the city of New Orleans. Fincher’s incredible photography captures the beauty that New Orleans has drifting through out it. There is a magic and charm to the city that holds a feeling that someone like Benjamin Button may have actually lived there. New Orleans is dark and mysterious place, filled with characters that are unique to anywhere else in the world. The city has lore about it built off such a fascinating history, it almost feels as if it could have been created by the minds in Hollywood. As Benjamin ages in this city it only adds that extra element of charm that this movie exudes. Along with the haunting and somber score by Alexandre Desplat what we are given is a movie that feels as timeless, dark and mysterious as New Orleans itself.
The script, written by Eric Roth based off the character created by F. Scott Fitsgerlad, is territory he is very comfortable in. Roth brought us another story that spans decades of a characters life with “Forrest Gump.” Benjamin could be Forrest’s more moody darker brother. Roth fills the script with the wisdom of a man who has paid attention as he has aged over the years. The narration by Benjamin through each stage of his life are thoughts turned into time capsules that hold feelings universally relatable: such as when he was a child feeling comforted knowing that his parents are awake in the their room while he drifts off to sleep, or knowing the sounds his house makes as he lays in bed at night. Later in his life he describes the feeling of returning home after being away for so long and feeling something is different and realizing the only that has changed is him. In the last stages of life he relates the feeling of passing on wisdom to the next generation. The script is so beautifully written and holds so many truths that while laying in my bed I can’t help but think about the stages of my life that I have passed through and how Benjamin is able to verbalize a feeling I had long forgotten. I then pay close attention to the advice he lays out before me about the stages that I await.
