A Curious Case Indeed

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a seminal American Film, and with a budget upwards of 150 million, it is one that I assumed studios no longer had the gall to make. A two hour and forty minute meditation on life and death, it in many ways lacks categorization. The story revolves around a central gimmick, pulled from a F. Scott Fitzgerald short story; what if a man (Button, played by Brad Pitt) were to age backwards, instead of forwards? On this question alone Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Panic Room) evokes the transitory and fleeting nature of one man’s life that is at once tragic, uplifting, and universal.

For such a soaring epic, Fincher might not have been an immediate choice as director. While his technical innovations have been staggering, human emotion has never been his forte. Perhaps, it still is not. But as I take in the full scope of the film, this might have been his greatest gift to Button (other than the superb motion capture employed throughout). And this takes me to my biggest issue with some of the reviews I have read of Button. First, that it is either forty minutes too long (it is not), or that the audience never fully connects to either Benjamin or Daisy (on this, I agree). The second critique has nothing to do with why this movie is so affecting, and entirely misses the point. The film, with its overly-polished actors and ornately intricate sets (note the over-the-top tug-boat which looks like something out of an expensive Broadway production), is not looking to parallel an odyssey like Forrest Gump (though they share the same screenwriter). While Benjamin is not a particularly relatable character, his experiences are innately human.

Take for example Benjamin’s visit to Daisy (a remarkable Cate Blanchette), his childhood love, who is now a successful dancer in Paris. By this point he has travelled to Russia, fought in a World War, and watched as dozens of his elderly friends pass away at his childhood home. His world-view is uniquely different then that of Daisy’s, and as a 23 year old dancer, exposed to none of the death which has surrounded Benjamin, she scorns his advances. As Daisy sits dying in a hospital room, she calls herself selfish. But is she really? Is each life not truly tinged by some regrets? Are mistakes not what make us human? Button, in all of its wisdom, shows life as a tapestry of failures, heartbreak, awe, and transition. The film employs a Marquez-like magical realism, meant to imbue a sense of loss, love, and the ever-present passing of time. It is a feeling. You have no particularly yearning to see more Benjamin, like you might have experienced with Mr. Gump. Instead it is your perception on time, and life’s beautiful imperfections that take the brunt of the film’s emotional jabs.

It is a sprawling, magical epic, and as Benjamin finally leaves us, it is as a man, and child, all at once.