The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a curious case indeed. The movie showed the mysterious predicament of a man that aged backwards.
After immense success with stylish flicks like Fight Club and Se7en, director David Fincher has created a movie both romantic and innovative while still drawing on his favorite style. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fincher takes the fantasy tale of a man growing backwards and forms it into a movie worthy of 13 Oscar nods.
The movie opens on a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina with a mother on her deathbed and her lone daughter standing by her bedside. The daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), is asked by her mother to read aloud the diary of Benjamin Button.
The diary begins with the tale of a blind clock maker, Gateau (Elias Koteas), building a giant clock for the New Orleans train station during the Great War (WWI). When he receives news of his son’s death, he designs the clock to run backwards in hopes of bringing back the boys that were lost in the war.
Mr. Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) comes home after work to find his wife dying from childbirth, and sees that his son was born as an 80-year-old man. He panics and abandons his son at a nursing home. The baby is taken in by Queeni (Taraji P. Henson) and Tizzy (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), an African-American couple working at the nursing home.
Christened Benjamin (Brad Pitt), the mysterious boy begins to slowly age backwards. He is next seen in a wheelchair with the ability to feed himself. At a nursing home party, Benjamin meets the granddaughter of one of the residents. Young Daisy (Elle Fanning) and Benjamin meet secretly at night to share secrets. At this point in the movie it becomes clear that the dying mother of the movie’s opening is Daisy.
Years pass, during which Benjamin learns to walk, finds a job on a harbor and pines for his one true love ? Daisy (now played by Cate Blanchett). As he lives and learns, he meets many men and women who make a profound impact on his life, including a diplomat’s wife (Tilda Swinton) and Mike the tugboat captain (Jared Harris). Benjamin’s story is told in quiet, personal narrative, while presenting the title character’s peculiar condition as something plausible.
For all the triumphs of his life so far, Benjamin still has not found love with Daisy. When he learns that her successful dancing career has been ruined by a car accident, Benjamin travels to London to visit her in the hospital. Though she says to him, “You’re perfect,” the two still must endure trials and tribulations before finally finding happiness with one another.
Back at the New Orleans nursing home, both Benjamin and Daisy fall in love as their internal and external ages become similar. The trials begin for Benjamin and Daisy when Daisy gives birth to their child Caroline. Wanting his daughter to have a real father figure, Benjamin leaves Daisy and his one-year-old daughter.
They are briefly reunited a few years later, but the tables have now been turned: Daisy is now an elderly woman in the nursing home and Benjamin is a teenager, acne and all. Yet the two still harbor love together, with Daisy caring for Benjamin despite his memory loss and growing temper.
This dramatic tale of love and fantasy is a testament to today’s moviemaking industry. Director David Fincher kept the love of the physically opposite Benjamin and Daisy alive until the very end of the movie, when Daisy’s dying breath is reserved for her lover.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button soared beyond the grain for standard genres and was well-balanced. The actors remained consistently in character throughout the movie. Although the movie was a few minutes short of three hours, Fincher kept the plot continuously flowing.
Benjamin’s aging speeds up after his 60s and left some details about his life out of the movie, which made parts of the plot a bit sketchy. For a movie that had a timeline that went through vital American events, it only displayed the effect of WWII had.
Although it had its ups and downs, the movie remained constant. The scene to make or break the movie was during Daisy’s stay at the London hospital. The scene was not dragged out and the effect it made on Benjamin became apparent to the audience, a moment that stood out in the long, plot-driven movie.
For more reviews of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, visit Rotten Tomatoes. For more movie reviews, visit the Jan. 16 article, ‘Valkyrie’ honors history.
