[Movie Review] THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Watching The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (heronin known as CCBB) is like you’re back at school, having some Shakespearian text thrown on your desk and being told that you’ll love it because it’s a classic. You’ll read it again years later in your adult life and realise it is indeed, but having it and its status “forced upon you” kind of makes you arch your back against it a little and not want to conform with what you’re being told.
This film looks like a classic, feels like a classic and probably will come to be considered as such in decades to come (as a special effects exercise I do agree that it will end up being as important a landmark as what James Cameron’s The Abyss was and is) but when you first leave the cinema, before you’ve given it a chance to breathe or bounce around inside your head and your heart, you can’t help but see it as great but flawed. On first inspection it plays like a two-part movie in which the first part is an over-indulgent exercise in groundbreaking special effects extravagance with the extravagance completely dialled down, and the second part is an over-long campaign advert as to why Brad Pitt should win this years People Magazine “Sexiest Man of the Year” poll. And next year’s too. And the year after that.
Hell, despite being a wholeheartedly heterosexual male (with sometimes latently homosexual music tastes, allegedly!), I walked out of David Fincher’s latest movie thinking “Man, Brad Pitt is like the most gorgeous man in the whole wide world. I’m going to go home and fashion a bag for my face that is comfortable enough to never ever be taken off!” Now, you’re all aware I’m a total David Fincher obsessive (if not check out my ode to him by clicking right here) so I was kind of predisposed, at the very least, to like the film. What I actually thought was that I would flat out love it. I was kind of upset that, in the immediate aftermath of it, I didn’t. But the lovely surprise was that when I woke up this morning and sat down to write about it, I came to really love the experience I’d had watching it.
Everyone knows the plot for CCBB by now right?
On the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams (Cate Blanchett) lies on her deathbed. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline (Julie Ormand). Daisy asks Caroline to read to her aloud the diary of Daisy’s lifelong friend, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt). Benjamin’s diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being born an old man who was diagnosed with several aged diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng), after Benjamin’s biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin was raised by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy’s grandmother was a resident at that home, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when in age they finally match up.
If ever there was any doubt that Pitt is probably one of the most interesting and brave of actors (surely there isn’t?) then CCBB will dispel such doubt once and for all. He gives a performance that is every bit as worthy of all the acclaim that he is getting. Is it my favourite male performance of the year? No, probably not. Out of what we have on offer in terms of the Best Actor nominees at this years Oscars, do I think he is the best there? Yeah. I’d go that far. Mickey Rourke will win. Brad Pitt should win. To list just what he has to do and what he achieves in this role, without just diminishing it to a soundbite of “he plays a man through his entire life from baby to old man, but backwards”, is impossible. His performance, however, is flawless.
He’s backed by yet another stellar showcase by Cate Blanchett who is so unbelievably good at what she does that she’s becoming a bore to write about. She’s good in everything (well… *cough* Indy 4 *cough*) and here is no different. What signifies both Pitt and Blanchett as actors of real weight is the fact that there’s no mechanism to their performances on show – imagine the horror if this had been Russell Crowe and Renee Zelwegger? You’d have seen every exaggerated nuance, hand-gesture and facial expression in two performances all about the performance and nothing at all about the characters.
All the kudos is being extended in the direction of Taraji P. Henson who, for me, would go more in the “Crowe/Zelwegger” camp then the “Pitt/Blanchett” one. Yet within the film is the truly beautiful, gentle supporting performance that is getting nigh-on zero respect or attention – Julie Ormand, returning to mainstream acting after a considerable break. I loved her work here. Until the final moments of the film arrive (and I defy ANYONE not to be genuinely moved by Blanchett in the film’s final moments where she walks down a street with a toddler or deals very delicately with the baby Benjamin in her arms!), she is providing heartbreakingly emotional work that really starts to effect you in its natural delivery.
Pitt, Blanchett and Ormand’s performances are a reflection of the film’s awe-inspiring special effects. To my eye, for the most part, CCBB is flawless in this regard. And they’re so unshowy it is unbelievable – you quickly forget that you’re watching an actor’s head made up with prosthetics on another actors body and things like that.
However, and here’s the rub, there’s a lot that makes CCBB difficult to fully embrace as the sort of shabby masterpiece that it is. The opening act (an aged Benjamin with a childlike spirit) seems to fall under the spell of its own special effects magnificence and spends longer within this narrative aspect then it needs to. Fincher seems so interested in doing as much effects sequences and making them as subtle and finessed as possible that, for me, he forgot to move the story along. The oppposite could be said of the second and third acts where the most interesting aspects – Benjamin’s adventures during WWII (the undoubted highlight of the movie!) and his connection “in the middle” with Daisy – felt a little rushed over. And by the time you’re reaching these elements, you’re starting to see moments within the film that existed and didn’t need to but have capitalised on the breathing space of stuff that deserved more time. Benjamin’s affair with a diplomat’s wife (played by Tilda Swinton) is a subplot I wouldn’t particularly miss if it was removed.
So it’s not perfect, no. I’ll give you that. But what it is saying about time and love is something quite powerful that resonates with you long after the film has finished. Over time I’ll probably forgive CCBB many of its flaws and embrace it as a masterpiece. Right now there were just a few little chinks here and there that keep me from embracing it completely. However, the true irony is that Fincher presented us with a genuine, flawless modern American masterpiece called Zodiac and no one noticed it. Now no one is prepared to make that mistake again and they’re hitting CCBB up with that very label but whether it is truly deserved of it is something that could be debated.
This isn’t a masterpiece – but it’s damn close enough and feels close enough to not feel undeserved of such a description. Ah, f**k it, you know what? Embracing the fact that I gave JCVD a full ‘score’ AND the fact that even just remembering certain elements of this film, what it made me feel and think and the fact that I smile or well up when thinking about them… well, I’m just going to cheat on my final rating:
NB:
Sorry but I cannot resist sharing an exchange between me and a mate of mine regarding this film, who has politely asked not to be named:
HIM: There’s a fault on the posters right?
ME: In what way?
HIM: The writing is backwards?
ME: It’s meant to be.
HIM: On all of them?
ME: No, just the one’s you’re going to be looking at – Yes, of course on all of them!
HIM: Why though?
ME: Well the films about aging backwards.
HIM: So why’s the title written backwards then?
3 Responses to “[Movie Review] THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON”
PS
I’ve already copyrighted THE CURIOUS CASE OF ZACHARY ZIPPER and THE CURIOUS CASE OF VINCE VELCRO so nobody better think about ripping me off, right?
And I’m currently looking into getting the rights so I can do THE CURIOUS CASE OF CURIOUS GEORGE so that one is already been ‘bagged’ too!
i can’t wait for this to come on Foxtel
I’m gonna try and write up a review for this tomorrow. I really enjoyed this one, too, even though I’m not a big fan of Brad Pitt in general. The effects work is truly spectacular.
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