|
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON Send This Review to a Friend
This is a cockamamie story well told. Admittedly the acting and production quality of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is of a high level, but the film, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, has been bloated into a two hour, forty-five minute opus that attempts to make us feel serious about an absurdity. The gimmick is that Benjamin Button is born an old man and ages backwards.
There is some odd fun in contemplating the relationship between Cate Blanchett as Daisy, who is growing older, and Brad Pitt as Benjamin, who is getting younger and more handsome by the year. Many an older woman might enjoy that situation. But when the handsome hunk passes her on the way down and gets younger and younger, thoughts may turn to worrying about cradle robbing.
Directed by David Fincher, this is the sort of pretentious film that can lead one to such oddball musings. The screenplay is by Eric Roth, with the story by Roth and Robin Swicord. The framework consists of flashbacks as Daisy, played by Blanchett as a very old, ailing woman dying in a hospital bed, with Blanchett made up accordingly to be virtually unrecognizable, reminisces about her life as her daughter reads from a discovered diary.
In the earlier scenes, Blanchett is her beautiful self. The time span runs from the end of World War I into the 21st century, and watching the film sometimes seems as if one has lived that long. Others in the cast fleshing out the sprawling tale include Taraji P. Henson, Julia Ormand, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Tilda Swinton.
The film makes pretenses of giving us deep insights into life. Yes, one can get involved in watching the stars and trying to connect with the story, but when it is all over and Benjamin has completed his strange cycle, there is the empty feeling of having spent time on a very silly journey. A Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers release.
|