The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (****)

Directed by: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Julia Ormond, Tilda Swinton, Elle Fanning, Jason Flemyng, Jared Harris
Seen: February 27th and March 4th 2009

**** Out of ****

“My name is Benjamin Button, and I was born under unusual circumstances…”, Caroline (Ormond) starts reading to her mother, Daisy Fuller (Blanchett) as she lies on her deathbed, old and suffering, but with bright blue eyes. Caroline reads Benjamin’s (Pitt) diary to Daisy as she nears her death, and so the story of Benjamin’s life unfolds, and it seems he was almost an observer to his own life. Benjamin’s mother died in childbirth, and short after that, on the night WW1 ended, his father, Thomas (Flemyng), abandons him on the stairs of a nursing home, unable to come to grips with his son’s monstrous appearance. Here Queenie (Henson) finds him and decides to take care of him while he survives, with a doctor telling her he has all the characteristics of a man well into his 80’s and on the way to the grave. But Benjamin doesn’t die, he gets younger and younger, and even though he is continually surrounded by people, he’s all alone. Even in old-age (being a young boy), he is lonely in his Alzheimer’s-like ramblings. He does however get the opportunity to learn a lot – the old people in the house makes him realise that living with regrets at old age is terrible, and since he thinks (for a time) he’s also old, he takes this to heart, something most of us do too late.

Visually the film is astounding, and with scenes as simple as a sunrise I found myself slack-jawed, amazed by the simple beauty on display. Couple that with the emotion of the story in these scene and you feel like going out and doing the beautiful things you’ve always wanted to. The make up and extremely subtle yet fantastic digital effects seamlessly enhance the film without being obtrusive for even one second, as Fincher creates a world of dark hues and earthen surroundings and bright reds (Daisy’s hair and dress) that pulls you in scene after scene, I was mesmerised for the entire 2:46 running time. As the tugboat on which Benjamin works encountered an enemy submarine I was dumbstruck, but then I have to add that lifting out one scene in no way belittles anything else, since everything is perfectly done. An old film-reel feel is also brought to good use, together with smoke and a flying hat, in several little scenes. I was also reminded of Amelie in one sequence of events being described in the film – causality is such an interesting thing.

Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Taraji P. Henson all make you believe in their characters without fail. Pitt is the detached observer, starting out as an energetic old “child” with a healthy curiosity, enjoying the house and later a hotel at night, just listening to the buildings breathe, feeling safe. He also gets treated as expected – as a peculiar little old man. His Benjamin Button is also extremely romantic, waiting a lifetime for Daisy, just content with staring at her whenever possible, and this love and passion becomes more evident when we see the two move in together. Blanchett is the somewhat self-indulgent, eventually loyal love interest, as initially, while she and Benjamin aren’t “the same age”, she feels spurned by him, as he loves her, but doesn’t act on it. This is later turned around when Daisy gets wounded, and she spurns Benjamin, who never wavers in his love for her. Henson is absolutely heart-warming as the doting mother figure. The supporting cast also deliver memorable performances, Julia Ormond as the supporting daughter, Jared Harris as Captain Mike on the tugboat and Elle Fanning as a beautiful young Daisy, her blue eyes blazing underneath her fiery red hair.

All the while the film speaks about life and everything (and everyone) it encompasses, being a mother, an artist, someone who gets hit by lightning (great and amusing series of “cameo” scenes), musicians, swimmers, and more. “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” – a quote attributed to Soren Kierkegaard, a 19th century Danish philosopher comes to mind during the film, as Benjamin encounters more and more people who he loses again as he grows up in the nursing home. He looks like them, and thus fits in, but since he gets younger and all of them die around him, he’s never able to really connect with anyone, and the one person that did have a big effect on his life is the one whose name he can’t remember. There are two people Benjamin knows for some time before really connecting with them, both when Benjamin and this person are of the same visual age, daisy being the obvious one, and his father the other – it is easier to connect with your peers, isn’t it?

The film is a beautiful tapestry of life, the feeling of family, of coming home, of always loving someone, and the importance of all those things in anyone’s life. It makes you feel like you’re young again when he’s young (old), and forces you to rethink some of your own life-philosophies. Take the opportunities life offers you, since your life is defined by it. For anyone who wants to look at life in a nostalgic way, this is it, without it being so in a manipulative or cheap way, and I want to see it again and again, if only because it makes some of the smaller and more beautiful things in life so significant. And these things will go on and on into infinity.