Benjamin Button is a respectable movie, well acted, well photographed, and blessed with impressive special effects and makeup. By now everyone knows that the plot is that Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is living his life backwards—he is born old and gets younger. His father dumps the freakish infant on the steps of what turns out to be a retirement home, where Benjamin fits right in. Along the way he falls in love with and marries Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett—he becomes acquainted with her when he is an old man and she is a child. Their love produces a child to whom Benjamin would like to be a father, but realizes that he will not be able to as he becomes younger.
Special effects are impressive; how they make Pitt look old I understand, but how they make him small, I’m still not sure of. Cate Blanchett also ages very convincingly. On her deathbed as an old woman in New Orleans as hurricane Katrina hits is the film’s framing device, and she is basically unrecognizable. The youthful Brad Pitt is creepy, looking like he has been digitally airbrushed of any signs of aging.
But the question of the movie is “Why?” Toward what end have we been presented with this odd story? Beyond the plot device and the challenges it poses, I can’t see that there a point to be made here. It is, as the real title implies, simply a “curious case.” Benjamin doesn’t seem to have any particular point of view, or very much to say about his odd life. The period of Benjamin’s life that would have been most interesting would be the final one in which he has his full intellectual powers and the benefit of a lifetime’s experience but the body of a child. However the film punts on this period and gives Benjamin dementia so that he recollects nothing, so no insights from Benjamin’s unique perspective are made available. There’s a random symbol thrown in—a hummingbird--but it seems to be there mostly for the sake of having symbolism. I suppose we’re to make something of Daisy passing her final moments in hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, but I’m not sure what—that her life has been tumultuous? But it hasn’t really.
There aren’t many impressive supporting parts in the film, though there are lots of characters. The one that stands out is Tilda Swinton, the English woman with whom Benjamin has an affair. Cate Blanchett does some ballet dancing in this film, or seems to. It’s impressive if real. Claims have been made about this being Brad Pitt’s best role, but he really doesn’t have an awful lot to do here but get made up. He’s much better in Fight Club (also directed by David Fincher), and even in his goofy physical trainer role in the Coen’s Burn After Reading.
Don’t get me wrong—this is a decent, hardworking film and pretty enjoyable. It’s long but the time passes quickly. I just don’t think it can figure out anything to do but to play out its plot device.
