Review: The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

I sometimes hate movie trailers. A lot. The reason I bring this up is that if you watch the trailer for "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button," it essentially spoils the entire film, right down to the ending. Also, please note that this isn't a suggestion that you watch said trailer, as it will ruin a great movie for you, or at the very least ensure there are very few surprises.

On with the review, though. The film is the life story of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), who begins the film by stating that "I was born under unusual circumstances." Oh, how he was. Benjamin was born as a baby, but with the body of an old man. As he grew older, he aged in reverse. If it seems unusual that I'm using the past tense, it's because the film is told in memory. From whose, I will not reveal, because the film doesn't opt to do so until about halfway in.

As a baby/old man, Benjamin lives in a retirement home run by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson). Benjamin's father (Jason Flemyng) abandons him on her porch after his wife, Benjamin's mother, dies in childbirth. Queenie takes him in and loves him like a child, especially since she's unable to bear her own. He grows up with an old man's body, but with the mind of a child. This leads to a chance encounter with Daisy, when Daisy is a little girl. This will prove fateful for Benjamin, as Daisy grows up (into Cate Blanchett, no less) and becomes Benjamin's lifelong lost love.

Once he's young enough in body to leave the safety of the retirement home, Benjamin voyages out into the world, and without giving too much away, he experiences all the joys of life in much the same way as the rest of us. He finds work as a hand on a boat, spends time embroiled in an affair in Russia and does a great many other things, but all the while, he feels as though something is missing, without Daisy present in his life. Each time they reunite, they marvel at how they are nearing in age, without either being willing to admit the inevitable: As he grows younger, so she grows older.

Being that this story comes from the slow-boiling prose of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the film has a gait to it instead of being a race towards an ending like many others out right now. However, it's a testament to the quality of this film that at no point in the film's three-hour running time does it feel as though it's dragging. Aside from the conceit of Benjamin's situation, there's really nothing unrealistic going on, but yet, the film feels as though it possesses a magical quality. After leaving the theater, I thought of another film about an unusual man's strange journey, "Forrest Gump," and I believe that this could catch on in the way that film did. Some will argue that there's no real point to this film, but did that one really have one? It was about the journey, not the destination, and here, it's about how sometimes, taking that journey is what some of us are really put on this planet for.