A technical accomplishment which is hollow from the inside.

Grade: B

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Indian Release Date: 27/02/09
CBFC Classification:  U/A
Running Length: 2 Hour 46 Minutes

Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond, Taraji P. Henson, Jason Flemyng, Tilda Swinton, Jared Harris
Director: David Fincher
Screenplay: Eric Roth, based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Cinematography: Claudio Miranda
Music: Alexandre Desplat

“We as for long life, but 'tis deep life, or noble moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is based on a short written in 1921 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, however the other than the basic concept & the title the two have very little in common. If you were to try & imagine Forrest Gump (1994) backwards you wouldn’t be far off from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. While both films chronicle a person’s journey growing up through various eras, the former was more heartfelt take on life; this one tries to be a more meditative one about the meaning of life. The movie does hinge on your ability to accept the basic premise of someone born old & aging backwards in appearance, if you do accept it with all the flaws possible then you’d be able to watch the movie without having to nitpick at every juncture.

The story is essentially told through flashbacks. The movie starts off in current time set right before the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The diary of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is read out to an old & dying Daisy (Cate Blanchett) by her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond). Benjamin is born to a rich family on the day of the end of the First World War. His mother dies soon after giving birth to him & his father Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) horrified by the baby’s grotesque appearance chooses to dump him outside an old age home. Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), who’s a caretaker at the old age home finds the baby & despite his ugly looks & the doctor’s advice to throw the baby away since he’s not expected to live for long, decides to keep him as she considers him to be a miracle of god. Everyone expects Benjamin to die soon but instead he keeps on growing younger with each passing year & by the time he is seven years old he has the appearance of an eighty year old. A few years later he meets Daisy for the first time, when she’s come over to meet her grandmother who’s also staying at the old age home. Daisy is a young girl & while Benjamin looks old is still a child at heart which allows the two of them despite their differing looks to kind of bond over a few things. The culmination of their feelings for each other doesn’t turn into a real relationship for decades together but they keep their paths keeps on crossing at various junctures.

The concept for a man aging backwards has been done before, maybe not successfully but it has been tried in Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth (2007) which was based on a novel by Mircea Eliade & told the story about an old man who gets struck by lightning & miraculously starts to grow younger. The movie wasn’t very good & got lost in its own absurd logic which it tried to justify to no end, but at least it featured an excellent acting turn by Tim Roth. Even Danny Boyle was all set to film a story based on the fairy tale character Solomon Grundy, who lives his whole life from infancy to old age in seven days, but had to shelve the project due to it’s similarities to Benjamin Button.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button tries to dispense nuggets of advice about life at regular intervals like It were some kind of ‘chicken soup for the soul’ book. Now there is no fault to be found with that, but the advice dispensed isn’t exactly original and since most of the times it comes from characters that have only a superficial depth it does sound a little corny & detached at times, almost like the director suddenly held up a placard for them to read out. All the characters live through various experiences & they change but the relation between their experiences and how it affects their decisions & changes in their life is something the audience will have to take for granted rather than understand through the story. With a concept like this which had a person aging backwards through so many ages the possibilities for a story were endless, but instead the writers & the director chose to play it safe and present it as a normal love story within a familiar ‘Forrest Gump’ story template (Eric Roth has written the screenplay for both of them). Since the stance taken by the director is of a more serious & spiritual tone, exploration of ideas related to aging, life & love could have been handled more profoundly & seriously rather than looking to relegate those ideas to one line answers or simple gimmicks (the butterfly effect logic in Daisy’s accident).

Not all the relationships work in the film, & that is not the fault of the actors rather that of the screenplay. Benjamin’s unique condition early on is used as an object of curiosity for the audience, which limits the screenplay from setting up a believable love story with Daisy while the acceptance of his relationship with Queenie is made more obligatory due to the fact she takes & adopts him in spite of his condition & also due to Taraji P. Henson’s sincerely heartfelt performance. While it is made clear from an early age that Daisy & Benjamin are meant for each other, it is never clear what keeps on pulling them back to each other through various stages in their life. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have it’s moments but they somehow don’t stay with you since till that point you really haven’t connected with the two main leads.

The movie is a marvel in every technical field. The cinematography to the set design to the costumes is flawless. All the characters aging effects are so seamlessly done, that you’d have a hard time not believing them. Each era which passes us by is brilliantly recreated. The scenes which tell small stories like the very first one about the clock which goes backward or the ones about the man who gets struck by lightning are superbly executed. In fact the very first story about the blind clockmaker is perhaps my favorite part of the movie. Even the background score for the movie is very well done.

Brad Pitt plays his part like he does all his meditative type roles, all serious, quiet & serene like he was in Seven Years in Tibet (1997) or Meet Joe Black (1998). Now while it does work in parts it also makes one hell of a boring character. He’s constantly moving through his entire life detached and emotionless in spite of whatever happens around him & whatever he feels isn’t always properly expressed by Brad Pitt’s acting unless you consider Benjamin to be an emotionally cold character. Cate Blanchett fares better than Pitt and makes the character of Daisy a far more three dimensional one, though maybe not so memorable. Of the rest of the cast Taraji P. Henson & Jared Harris as the tug-boat captain make an impression. Tilda Swinton’s character serves no real purpose to the overall story other than to supply another nugget of advice during the course of the film & Benjamin’s life.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is actually two films combined into one, one is a spiritual-fantasy tale about a man aging backwards & the various times he lives through & the other is a timeless love story. Now while at certain points both the stories interweave, neither one reaches it’s full potential because the director doesn’t know how to end the fantasy tale and doesn’t know how to start the love story, hence the final product though beautiful to look at is actually shallow on the inside.

Benjamin Button: “You never know what’s coming for you”

Forrest Gump: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get”


Final Verdict: A technical accomplishment which is a worthy watch but just don’t expect the most satisfying of stories from it. If a more heartfelt story along the same lines is what you desire, then go watch Forrest Gump instead.

Grade: B

 

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