The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

I find no other movie to compare The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with as well as I do with the 1997 James Cameron epic Titanic. Both films are period dramas that are well refined and polite-the kind of drama that would get nominated for Oscars in a second. Both films are by directors of highly stylized films, and both films are extremely long and extremely good. And neither are original ideas. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is based off of a short story of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald which was written in the 1920s. The film is directed by David Fincher, stars Brad Pitt, and has a twist in the film, as all David Fincher films starring Brad Pitt do. But don’t worry. No one is Tyler Durden. It’s a smaller twist, but still a twist. Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a boy who is born the day the First World War ended. He is born with a rare medical condition-he ages backwards. He is born a baby who looks like an old man. When he is seven years old, he looks like a small immature seventy-year-old. And when he is seventeen, he looks like he is sixty. And so on and so forth. His story constantly intertwines with the story of Daisy (played by the amazing Elle Fanning and the fabulous Cate Blanchett as the seven-year-old and twenty-through-sixty-year-old versions of Daisy), a woman who ages naturally (as all of us do) and who strikes a relationship with Button throughout their lives. Actually, the main story is told as a story, being read to Daisy as an old woman in 2005, another similarity to Titanic. The movie plays out mostly for this way. We see these two people’s lives intertwine in some of the strangest ways, and there are some makeup effects and CGI in the film that is just absolutely amazing. We see Brad Pitt ranging from sixty to sixteen, and it works flawlessly. And while the film isn’t a stylish thriller like Se7en or Fight Club, or even a stylish drama like The Social Network, it is just a smart little true drama film that takes fantasy, blend it with reality, and gives us a universe where you can’t even tell which is which.
8.5/10