Long ago, in what now seems another life, I was an aspiring screenwriter whose finished scripts as well as story drafts tended toward the fantastical. For instance, an article in the now long defunct Omni Magazine inspired the idea of dinosaur DNA extracted from amber leading to a dinosaur being cloned and then wrecking havoc on the world due to carrying a disease that killed off all the dinosaurs.
What stopped me wasn't Michael Crichton writing "Jurassic Park" (that came many years after the fact), but rather the worry that Hollywood's special effects at that time couldn't create realistic dinosaurs among humans.
Likewise, I had the idea of a man who ages backwards from death to birth, but similarly found my creativity stymied by the special effects dilemma. Little did I know that novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald had beaten me to the punch by sixty years with his 1922 short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Unlike my idea of an old man reversing stream from his death bed back to the cradle, Fitzgerald's tale was of a baby born infant-sized in an old body, and then growing old while his body progressively got younger.
Hollywood apparently also thought the idea would be too difficult to pull off as it's taken filmmakers more than three-quarters of a century to turn the short story into a feature length film that's now hitting theaters with its inspiration's title still intact. That said, fans of the tale might be somewhat disappointed that director David Fincher ("Zodiac," "Fight Club") and screenwriter Eric Roth have only kept the underlying premise and theme intact and pretty much changed everything else, shifting the start of the story forward more than half a century from the beginning of the American Civil War to the end of WWI.
That said, what follows is a fairly engrossing tale of a man's journey through life, his encounters with a variety of interesting characters all while witnessing various historical events, and doing so while handicapped by a unique biological phenomenon. The latter not only brings up thematic elements regarding life, death, and a slew of observations regarding the aging process and both inner and external views of what it means to be both young and old, but also serves as an interesting complication for the main plot thrust.
And that is that the tale basically boils down to a love story, albeit a crazily unconventional one at that. As a boy in an old man's body, our protagonist meets a pretty girl, Daisy, and is instantly smitten, and their paths repeatedly cross only to diverge once again over all of the following years.
The story arc is both engaging and heartbreaking as Benjamin's condition means the two only have a small window where a true romantic relationship can exist, at least in the public eye, as their physical ages finally intersect, only to then march forward (and backward) in opposite directions, meaning a highly unlikely chance of growing old (and young) together.
The repeatedly intersecting love story of a physically challenged kid who grows up to travel the world and witness various famous historical events (all told -- including with voice over narration -- with state of the art special effects at the time of the film's productions) will likely remind viewers of a somewhat similar tale -- that being of "Forrest Gump."
Interestingly enough, Roth wrote both screenplays, and the similarities (that also include a recurring "floating" motif that's totally unnecessary here and interestingly seems unbelievable even in such a fantastical tale) might drive some viewers crazy, especially if they strongly loved or hated "Gump."
Nonetheless, and perhaps due to my background interest in such a premise, I found the film engaging from start to finish, and never felt that it was too long, even with a running time of 160-some minutes. Beyond the terrific and fascinating special effects that make Pitt appear small yet old, and then later as a young teenager (as in pre "Thelma and Louise"), and the wonderful cinematography and production design, the lead performance is what really drives the film, with Pitt delivering some of his best acting to date.
Supporting work from the likes of Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Jared Harris, Tilda Swinton and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, among others, is solid across the board. Julia Ormond is also good as an adult daughter at her elderly mother's death bed, reading through her mom's materials, as well as the protagonist's diary.
Personally, I could have done without that plot device (that transpires during the approach of Hurricane Katrina outside the hospital walls), not only because it's too easy to figure out the "surprise," but also because I've never been a huge fan of such storytelling.
I understand that it breaks up the chapters, if you will, of the main story and thus allows for the passage of time (and on a thematic level here ties in with the overall theme of mortality), but I'd simply prefer to watch the tale unfold uninterrupted, especially when the past and present connections are too easily discernible. Even so, that's a small quibble in an otherwise interesting and captivating tale that's well-told and will likely earn its fair share of award nominations. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" rates as a 7 out of 10.
![[Logo]](/images/screenit_logo2.jpg){kind=logo}
