I love David Fincher's work. I think that despite only putting movies out ever 3 years, the work he does is fantastic. Se7en is a great movie, Zodiac is a great movie, Fight Club is a great movie. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button can go up there with his list of greats now.
The story of Benjamin Button put simply is of a man who ages backwards. He was born around the age of 85 and he died at the age of 1 (Spoiler Alert?). Brad Pitt plays Benjamin, who is left on the doorstep of a retirement home in New Orleans. Benjamin believes he's normal seeing as despite his young personality and naive way of thinking, his exterior looks the same as everyone else in the home. This right off the bat gets things going good. We become immediately attached to Benjamin's naive self and also, Brad Pitt looks strikingly un-Brad Pitt like.
There is also a parallel storyline of Daisy (Cate Blanchett) in a modern day hospital with her daughter Caroline. Caroline never having met or heard of Benjamin, reads his diary to her dying mother. The movie cuts from Daisy's future to Benjamin's past. They go through when Benjamin met Daisy, how they fell in love, how she became a dancer and how he traveled the world on a steam boat and helped in WWII.
I'll go through the bad parts of the movie first. The Caroline-Daisy side plot never gets off the ground enough to fully add anything to the movie except about 25 min. Does it take anything away from the movies excellence? Not at all, it simply just adds to our emotional connection to Daisy, a character that needed nothing added to.
Also there isthe part about Brad Pitt. In last years movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the Real-Life-Pitt always was in the back of your mind holding him back from the decent On-Screen-Pitt. Here the same thing can not be said. Is it going to win him an Oscar? No, but he is very good. Mostly because the CGI here makes him look 89 years old and by the time he looks like hunky Brad Pitt we all know and...adore, we think of him as Benjamin Button. The CGI does somewhat hold him back I feel though from being a complete acting powerhouse.
For every bad thing to be said however there are 3 good things. The Score is the best of the year and you won't find one more subtle yet powerfully stirring. At the right moments the right music plays. Another minor brilliance in it is the costume design. The technical aspects of the movie hit just right and the wardrobe is no exception.
The most coherent part about the film though is the storytelling. The narrative, at least from the Benjamin Button aspect of things and not the Daisy-Daughter aspect, is stunningly sensible and reads like a novel. Fincher hits on the high and interesting parts of Buttons life and no footage is put to waste. The best bits are with Benjamin in a hotel meeting Tilda Swinton (Who's much better here than in anything previous. Suck on that Micheal Clayton!). My favorite scene is with Benjamin and Daisy in a park and she is dancing while he watches. Jazz is playing in the background and the scene is the most haunting I've seen all year.
Even the controversial running time was fine by me. Sure it could've been cut down to a cool 2 hours 15 min, but just spending time in this fantastic world was amazing. All the performances are great including the wonderful Blanchett (a good performance by her? Weird, right?)The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ranks up there with the best films of the year in my mind. Grade - A
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