Benjamin Button: Flawed, but Still Worth Seeing
By Alison Silvis
Associate Editor
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is well-acted, well-directed, intellectual-engaging, but lengthy. Its main subjects – aging and death – are not favorites with Hollywood or the American public, and for that reason I respect director David Fincher (Fight Club) for tackling Benjamin Button. The movie’s themes are well developed and richly woven throughout the movie: parental responsibility, adapting to the inevitable surprises in life, aging, our dependence on others at the beginning and end of life, regret and love.
The movie starts out at the end of World War I, with the birth of grotesquely deformed baby who is taken in by a benevolent woman after his father abandons him. She is employed at a senior-citizens home in New Orleans, a fitting place for the “childhood” of a boy who looks eighty years older than his age. In fact, Benjamin’s body is aging in reverse – from old to young – while his brain is developing in the usual way. Surprisingly, very few characters in the film seem troubled by this, which is one of the less realistic and unexplained faults of the film.
About twelve years after Benjamin’s birth, he falls in love at first sight with Daisy, the granddaughter of one of the senior citizen’s home residents. The rest of the film is spent chronicling their on-again, off-again romance in great detail, although it does not devote enough time to explaining why sweet, quiet Benjamin was so enamored of the volatile Daisy, aside from her obvious beauty.
In few movies does Cate Blanchett look as luminous on screen than here, perhaps because the beginning of the movie focuses on the odd-looking boy/geezer Benjamin, played by Brad Pitt. In fact much of the $160 million budget was spent on special effects to simulate his stooped body and aged face as a boy, which is unattractive but admittedly impressive.
In stark contrast, Blanchett is like a breath of fresh air when she finally appears, gracefully pirouetting as a ballerina for the American Ballet Company about an hour into the film. It takes even longer to be rewarded with a somewhat-attractive shot of Pitt, sans makeup and blue screen effects. This clearly draws attention to the American discomfort with aging and beauty, which Daisy is acutely aware of. As usual, Blanchett is an excellent actor here, portraying Daisy’s self-doubt, tempestuousness and ultimate maturation and growth.
The movie feels suspiciously similar to Forrest Gump in its montage of American life in the twentieth century from the perspective of a Southern family. As clothes change and electronics progress, characters come and go. Most characters are remarkably well developed, even after brief appearances. However, like most films in this epic style, several loose ends are left untied at the end of the film. For example, there is a recurring character who intermittently tells of each of the seven times he was struck by lightening. Each of these is accompanied by a brief flashback, which is almost comical. Given the seriousness of the rest of the film and the lack of any connection of these episodes fit into to the overall plot, they seemed confusing and distracting. I understand that they illustrate how unpredictable life is, but that message could have been conveyed with just one lightening episode, rather than seven.
Another minor aspect of the movie that I disliked – in addition to its length – was the parallel story of modern-day Daisy’s death. The entire story is told by Daisy’s daughter (played by Julia Ormond) reading from Benjamin’s diary. Outside the hospital where Daisy is dying, Hurricane Katrina approaches the New Orleans. This adds nothing to the themes of the film. Instead, it truncates the flow of the story and leaves many questions unanswered, such as what happens to the daughter after the hurricane hits. Cutting out this side story would have reduced the overall length of the movie without sacrificing any of the character development.
Overall, the movie is definitely worth seeing, although it has obvious flaws. It is predicted to receive several Oscar nominations. If nothing else, the acting and appealing themes are worth the price of admission.
Alison Silvis is a second-year medical student.