The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - A Review

Directed by David Fincher

Written by Eric Roth (story by Robin Swicord and Roth)

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, and Taraji P. Henson

Running time 166 minutes

2008

Do you learn more about yourself when you’re alone or when others surround you? Is it how you act in a crowd, or how you act when it’s all up to you?

I’d say the answer is neither…and both.

Introspection is something I do extremely often. The hours spent staring at the darkness before sleep is fraught with wide-ranging emotions. The nights out with friends where you second-guess life directions subconsciously as you tear into a case of cheap beer and laugh about growing up.

I suppose it’s a constant, evolving process.

Benjamin Button did both – but he did most of his learning alone.

This is an appropriate comparison: I thought a lot about Forrest Gump when I watched David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Forrest did most of his learning alone, too.

Forrest and Benjamin are tragic characters in many ways, but lovely, wonderful ones in more. Forrest perhaps lived the most American tale ever told; Benjamin lived the most unique.

Benjamin’s mother dies in childbirth, and his father sees his son for the first time and is horrified. The baby is a miniature, frail, and crippled being. In a truly horrifying act of fright and confusion, the father nearly murders poor Benjamin. In a slightly less horrifying act, he ultimately abandons the baby on the front steps of what would turn out to be a home full of visitors full of love (also reminiscent of Gump).

The gist of the story is simple: Benjamin ages from old to young. It’s (literally?) a coming of age story.

I never read the F. Scott Fitzgerald story that this is adapted from, but I may seek it out. The script (written by Eric Roth – one of the finest screenwriters of this generation and also penned the adaptation for Gump) is multi-dimensional in that it is telling a quirky story with plenty of drama and humor and even some suspense while encompassing love, morality, and mortality.

It’s important to note that Benjamin never sheds a tear in this film. I view this as a testament to the solitude he found himself in so many times. Being alone hardens you overtime. Benjamin is a hopeless romantic, is driven by his dreams to explore, but was given a full deck of cards (with respect to life). Forrest Gump, on the other hand, was wholly innocent. He was pure. Benjamin goes to a brothel, readily admits to courtships with beautiful women when he is the prime physical condition of his life, and understands the hardened human condition (he makes one of the hardest decisions a human could probably ever make towards the end of the film – though perhaps the most responsible).

What Pitt brings to this picture is innumerable. He perfected the patented Tom Hanks staring-into-the-distance-in-deep-contemplation expression. He can emote with subtle eye movements and minor nods of the head. I’d be remiss to not acknowledge that – like a Clint Eastwood or a Paul Newman or now a Tom Hanks or even a George Clooney – Pitt gets to add his own seal to the performance. His charm, his laugh, his persona is being sold. Only the greats can get away with that. He does.

He has two major counterparts, however. Tilda Swinton – in another small, biting role – plays a once-ambitious woman he first experiences love with and Cate Blanchett – his true love. Swinton and Blanchett are both stunningly able and attractive and are engrained in the small community of Hollywood females that I would say Kate Winslet leads that are smart, extremely talented forces of acting brilliance.

Fincher presents this tale to us in such a reasonable and responsible manner it’s hard to believe he gave us the great-but-gritty Fight Club and Se7en. F. Scott Fitzgerald is certainly not known for wholesome tales, and this story has sex, war, booze, and foul language. Fincher and Roth present a PG-13 film that, I’d imagine, will help many teens find some understanding in their confusing lives (which is what Gump would do for me when I was in high school).

Button deserved all the Oscar nominations it got (all 13 of them) and none were more deserving than for editing and cinematography. The tale weaves modern-day with the past seamlessly and, as the top-notch films of every year do, are able to add a layer or even another dimension through only light or shadows or a different film lens or a set placement or a frame cut. It’s pristine in presentation.

A film like Button serves an important function for a boob like me. It provides food for thought as I lay in bed trying to figure out if I’ve learned anything about myself or about life in my existence.

As Forrest Gump put it - I may not be a smart man…

But I know what love is.

Scott.