The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

What it's about:

Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born as a baby-sized old man, much to the horror of his father Thomas (Jason Flemyng). As his mother died in childbirth, Benjamin gets abandoned on the steps of an old age home and is taken in by kindly nurse Queenie (Taraji P. Henson). It soon becomes apparent that Benjamin is ageing backwards, and as a child he strikes up a friendship with Daisy (Cate Blanchett) who regularly visits her grandmother at the home. As Benjamin grows up, he leaves to join a tugboat crew, eventually going to war. Along the way he has many adventures, but never forgets Daisy. Finally the two are reunited, but his unique condition stands in the way of their happiness together.


What we thought of it:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a really beautiful movie – the cinematic equivalent of a plush, artistically decorated mansion. Unfortunately, this mansion is empty, and has as much soul as a warehouse full of featureless shop mannequins.

To his credit, Brad Pitt does a good job as amiable outsider Benjamin, although not quite Oscar material. Since his demeanour changes very little from age five through to age 80, it would be wrong to call it a powerhouse performance. The best parts of the film are probably when he is a wrinkly little boy trying to get along with the other pensioners in the old age home, as that provides some laughs and the only portion concerned with the way we see time throughout our lives, which is the whole point, isn’t it?

Many people have already made all the comparisons to scriptwriter Eric Roth’s other Oscar-baiter Forrest Gump, and with good reason. From several identical scenes to the lead character’s drawl, the shadow of Gump hangs over Benjamin like a dark, stupid cloud. Roth obviously tried to repeat his winning formula, but the story of Benjamin Button is more suited to quietly moving romance and contemplation than simply bumbling through various historical settings looking for love and acceptance.

Cate Blanchett plays Benjamin’s equivalent to Forrest Gump’s Jenny, right down to the willful younger years and constant child-like infatuation she is treated with. As good an actress as she is, she never becomes any more than another conduit through which the innocent Benjamin accesses the real world, as is the case with almost every other character in the movie, despite each of them having to do way more than Pitt.

In the hands of Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow) or Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie, The City of Lost Children), such magical whimsy could have really tugged on the heartstrings, but David Fincher lacks that playful touch, and where I should have been reaching for the tissues, I was stifling a yawn. Seriously, for a film of this calibre to be so emotionally flat is criminal.

While there is a part of me that desperately wanted to like this movie, it is just a case of too little reward for your time and money. Fairytales are supposed to be exciting, moving, and deliver an enduring message, and Benjamin Button does none of the above. Rarely has such an assemblage of talent produced such a tedious, lacklustre disappointment.