The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The most striking feature of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons" is the special effects used to make Brad Pitt look like a seven-year-old boy that looks like an eighty-year-old man. I feel relieved that this story was not attempted by the Sci-Fi Channel or some other third-rate joke of a cable channel. This movie could not have been made ten or even five years ago, at least not without having the mood of the film diluted by hammy CGI. More amazing still is the level to which Brad Pitt performs an impossible role. Sure Mark Hammill had to pretend that he had a laser on the end of that stick, but Brad Pitt had pretend he was a miniature old man, who wanted nothing more than to play like other six-year-olds his own age. I realize I am cramming a lot of contradictions into one paragraph, and if you do not know anything about this movie, check it out before continuing. For those who do know something about this "curious" tale, see this movie. It is visually stunning and heart-breaking--two words often used to describe adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald's works, but this is no Great Gatsby. This is surrealist fantasy on the level of H.P. Lovecraft or even Stephen King. And the horror is this tale is not visceral, besides the site of a rinkled newborn, but instead, psychological and metaphysical. I cannot escape the suspicion that this story informed Audrey Neffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, which deals with a similar love relationship that is limited by incongruent paths of the character through time. The love story is none-the-less sufficient and satisfying for the purposes of the story.

My one qualm with this story is the event in which the aged Daisy cheats on her husband with Benjamin, when he returns to visit her after a long estrangement. Benjamin returns looking to be in his twenties and actually meets Daisy's daughter and husband. While I can certainly understand the temptation to continue the affair, especially on Daisy's part, considering Brad Pitt looks like he did in Thelma and Louise, a grown woman feeling as if the only way to find closure with the love of her life is to sleep with him, seems terribly naive and immature. It is enough that she will spend the rest of her life loving a man with whom she cannot be, but she has placed an infidelity and a pernicious weight atop her marriage. A weight that cannot help but have a lasting effect on her marital relationship. I guess some would see this as a brave and empowering act carried out by a strong woman, but I cannot see it in that light no matter what angle from which I approach the situation.

One qualm aside this film is worth seeing, if only for the sheer movie magic of it all. This movie captures what is grand and commendably indulgent about cinema. It depicts real emotion and humanity inside a world of fantastic fiction that leaves one dazzled as they exit the cinema.