The process of life and death always follows a pattern: The organism is born, grows to a certain degree, and then begins decaying towards death. However, in Benjamin Button’s case, this natural cycle runs backwards and repeats itself. This odd phenomenon is what most people find intriguing about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Add in a grippingly sad love story, the beautiful Cate Blanchett, and the ever-physically-transforming Brad Pitt, and the film itself becomes a novelty.
Benjamin Button opens up with an old and dying Daisy Fuller (Blanchett), who asks her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to read Benjamin Button’s (Pitt) journal. The journal itself contained accounts of Benjamin’s mysterious development and his tragic love affair with Daisy. From the recounted tales, Caroline learns much about her mother’s past, as well as the sad truth of Daisy’s true love.
In birth, Benjamin takes the form of what looks like a deformed baby boy, with illnesses and the appearance of an old man. After being abandoned by his father, Thomas (Jason Flemyng), and taken in by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), Benjamin’s growth astounds the people around him. The older he grew, the younger he looked.
The love story begins after Benjamin meets a six-year-old Daisy, who finds him intriguing and comforting to be with. Throughout the rest of the film, Daisy grows naturally into a blooming woman while Benjamin regresses into the form of a younger man. Both encounter each other at different times of their development and, coveinently an hour before the film ends they both finally meet halfway.
True, the film is based very loosely on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story of the same name; the movie itself contains almost nothing of the Fitzgerald plot. However, even with the entirely different design and the additional love story, Benjamin Button delivers the same general idea, that of aging and despair—with a slight twist. Eric Roth deserves a pat on the back for the compelling script, despite its length and many digressions—Benjamin Button was three hours long and kept deviating from the love story to show other aspects of Benjamin’s life.
At three hours long, one would expect Benjamin Button to simply drag on. For some, it probably did. I, on the other hand, was intrigued by the different events—each separate, but still meshed with the rest of the movie—and experiences that Benjamin undergoes from his trip with the Navy, to his chance encounter with Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton), to his reconciliation with his father, and then to his final days as a child.
The transition for each scene and timeframe was done so smoothly that if it weren’t for the changing appearances of the ensemble of characters, it almost was as though time stood still. The acting itself was not incredibly superb, but it was still rather commendable. Pitt plays it a little too safe as Benjamin (though it was better than some of his past roles), while Blanchett’s growth was hauntingly beautiful (which could be credited to the makeup artists and wonderful cinematography).
The plot isn’t very hard to deduce, so spoiling the movie itself proves rather moot. However, most of the story in-between is what makes Benjamin Button itself definitely endearing.
