A woman who is on her deathbed in hospital asks her daughter to read to her a diary she has held for many years of her life. The diary details the life of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), who was born after the end of the First World War in New Orleans. Given that he was born old and looked horribly deformed, he was abandoned on the doorsteps of a nursing home by his father and his mother died in childbirth. Amongst the elderly residents Benjamin is raised in the home by an African American woman named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson). He also meets a range of colourful fairytale-like characters throughout the adventures and episodes of his life. One of the most significant relationships Benjamin develops is with a ballet dancer, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), who met Benjamin in her youth. Their relationship develops late in the film as he finds her living in New York, as she grows older, but he becomes gradually younger.
Despite being based on a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1921, it is difficult to view The Curious Case of Benjamin Button without reminiscing films like Forrest Gump and Big Fish. Each of these films presented a fable-like story of an innocent character whose journey through life is filled with unusual and sometimes dangerous adventures, which allowed them to reflect on their existence in the world, as they met a range of unusual characters, most importantly a woman who forms a significant and emotional part of their lives. While Forrest Gump relegated itself to both satire and sentimentality, Benjamin Button, despite an air of familiarity (the screenplay was written by Eric Roth who also composed the script for Forrest Gump), is a much intelligent and complex variant on the fantasy genre, because of the questions its raises about age, time and death.
Unlike Forrest Gump and Big Fish though, there is considerably less time is spent with many of the strange oddball characters that Benjamin meets in his life. Those that Button meets are fun – like a brittle English woman in a hotel, a tugboat sailor covered in tattoos, or a small Blackman who lived in a zoo - but they are never as defined or as particularly well known as in those previous two films. Yet this is precisely the point and one of the key themes in the film, that nature and the unpredictable course of life will always ensure that people can come and go from one’s life and have significant or little impact or who they become.
These notions are further emphasised by a number of anecdotes and red herring’s throughout the film, like the man who insists he has been struck by lightning seven times. With each recollection of this, the film cuts to grainy, silent footage where we see him struck by lightning. While indeed humorous, perhaps this is a more significant amplification and reinforcement of the theme of nature and time and the way that it can interfere with one’s life. No matter what one chooses to do or who they meet, or where they go, there are always going to be factors that are out of our control and will impact on one’s life. These anecdotes and the way they construct the ideas of time and age reinforce the fairytale-like qualities of the film and contribute a brand of sweetness that allows it to be both fun to watch and also academic in the questions it raises.
The centrepiece of the film is a very strong performance by Brad Pitt, who is aided immeasurably by excellent makeup to play both the elderly Benjamin and the younger man too. As he grows younger it becomes a more still performance, one that isn’t particularly showy, but one that is just very likeable. His narration – despite its familiarity – is poignant throughout the film and really captures the feel that we are being read a story – perhaps a compliment to Fitzgerald’s short story. Tilda Swinton has a fairly brief role as a brittle Englishman in Russia, while Blanchett has a much larger part as the older Daisy – but both women are very competent in their roles, looking eerily similar at times.
The final third of the film gives much more time to Blanchett’s character and the relationship between herself and Button. As they move into their duplex together and talk about having a child the fairytale fable elements of the rest of the film seem very distant, as though the film is almost grounded in a brand of realism at last. It is this final third of the film that really feels overlong and tends at times though.
At approximately 160 minutes you really begin to feel the time. Yet it is still a very beautiful film to watch though, as director David Fincher has crafted a film that is very handsomely made, with particular care being placed in the art direction and set designs – the tug boat scenes are particularly impressive. There are familiar elements with the film and it is imperfect, but there are so things to enjoy about it and much to question that remains a very watchable and likeable film to enjoy.
4/5.
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