Cute as a Button

Okay, I've been writing all day AND it's been a few days now since I actually saw the film I am about to talk about, so I apologize if my thoughts seem rather fluid.

I thought The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a delightfully creative film. Though it's based on a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, it takes a remarkable amount of ingenuity to actually attempt to create such a complicated movie.

The basic premise is this. Our hero, a Mr. Benjamin Button is born quite a different person from you or I. You see, he ages backwards - born as a withered old man, and growing younger until he dies as a baby. Throughout the film, he falls in love with Daisy who, as an old lady dying in a hospital, is the impetus for the telling of the tale, as her daughter reads it from Benjamin's diary.

Now, consider what this requires: the actor, Brad Pitt, must be an old, small man, and then gradually become a child. What this means is that the film shows the execution of some marvelous special effects. Think Robert Zemeckis CG, only more life-like. Of course, its hard for us to guess what an old man the size of a child would look like, so it's hard to say if this part was exactly "realistic," but I found the overall fact that Brad Pitt was aging younger to be generally believable.

The story itself is very sweet. Rather than fighting his fate, Benjamin seems to accept his condition, largely do to his upbringing by a wonderful African American woman named Queenie. (I hope this actress is at least nominated for an Oscar - but more on that in a moment). In the end, the film bears the message that you can't fight fate or death, that when the time comes, you must simply let go. I find this remarkably insightful and a lesson well worth learning.

I also really enjoyed the love story between Benjamin and Daisy (played by the fabulous Cate Blanchett who, in my mind, can do no wrong). I thought it was very sweet, though not meant to last, and had a star-crossed lovers feeling that is very powerful film material. Daisy, of course, had to age at the same time Benjamin got younger, and I thought the makeup on Blanchett was quite good.

There was one scene in the film that I regard with utter amazement and extreme admiration. (This has a slight spoiler in it, so if you're someone who doesn't want to know a single thing about a movie before you see it, these next three paragraphs aren't for you...) At one point in the movie, something happens that makes Benjamin go to Paris - the audience isn't told what immediately. Instead, we are presented with a chain of events. More specifically, it's a chain of changed events... events that would have normally happened one way, but for some reason, happened differently.

A woman, leaving her apartment, forgets her coat and goes back inside. There, she answers the phone. When she does leave, she catches a second cab because the first one had just left. This second cab driver had just recently stopped for coffee, making him arrive at the woman's apartment at the time that he did. Upon backing up, he almost hits a man who was crossing the street, but was doing so at a different time than he normally does because he didn't set his alarm clock. It goes on like that. Eventually, it begins to involve Daisy, leading up to the moment she led the theater and began to cross the street. Now, Benjamin goes back through the events, showing what it would have looked like if everything had gone normally, and on this train of events, the cab with the woman in it stops when they see Daisy crossing the street.

However, as you can tell, that's now how things happened. The cab actually hits Daisy, breaking her leg and forcing her to stop dancing. While this is clearly complicated to pull off, it's something I enjoy thinking about quite frequently. The point as I understood it is that every moment in our individual lives is a byproduct of hundreds of other moments. While each of these moments could happen a hundred different ways, they only happen one way, and when they intersect, they cause the moment that we personally experienced.

Now, there are a few gripes I have regarding Benjamin Button. I understand that the film attempts to incorporate the entirity of Benjamin's long life, but somehow the filmmakers managed to take a "short" story and create a nearly three-hour movie! Personally, I'm not against long movie... but I believe that the story should dictate the length. Films like The Dark Knight or Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which were both over or around two and a half hours, did not feel long. The action near the end, the excitement, and the climactic energy led to a strong finish, one that made me (I don't know about anyone else) feel as if the extra length was well spent. However, Benjamin, I'm not going to lie... felt a tad too long. I began to notice time passing (something I believe I shouldn't do while in a movie) and felt that some parts could have been edited a bit more.

Additionally, well, there's Brad Pitt. Sure, he's a hottie (and is he EVER when he's on a motorcycle, wearing a leather jacket and aviators!) but I personally don't believe he did that much acting. He kind of just... was. Was in the scene, was in love. I didn't really believe that he was anyone other than Brad Pitt pretending to be named Benjamin. Cate, well, she was great... from her accent to her mixed feelings about loving Benjamin.

Now, last thought here... Oscars. I'm pretty sure the nominations are bound to be announced soon, and I expect Benjamin Button will figure in them. Some of the blogs I read seem to think it'll make Best Picture... I'm not sure what I think about that. I hope and believe that the actress who played Queenie will be nominated, and I'm sure it will get nominations for best makeup, best adapted screenplay, and maybe special effects. We'll have to see!

All in all, I would recommend seeing it because it's cute, uplifting, and makes you think. It also has some very cool effects, and very nice shot of Brad Pitt in aviators.