The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Criterion Collection DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

There was a time, many moons ago, when I was just writing these reviews after coming home from a day at a crappy job, when I was trying to watch all 100 films on the AFI list that was released in 1997. At last count, I think I watched 70 or so, but at some point during that phase, I had watched Citizen Kane, since it was (and still is) the number one film on the list. I remember thinking, at the time, that if this film was so damn great, and indeed the "number 1 film of all time," how did it lose Best Picture that year to How Green Was My Valley? When I first saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in theaters, I remember finding it to be a rather remarkable film, but I remember finding myself at odds, if slightly, over how similar the film was to Forrest Gump. As is the case with most brilliant films, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a film that you simply can't watch just once, and after a second viewing, I firmly believe this film will grow into the classic it's destined to become... which may even evoke the question of how Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture, 50 or so years down the line.

Honestly, there was never a doubt over whether I would see the film in the theater or not, and that reason is just one name: David Fincher. I am an unabashed hardcore fan of Fincher's films and he is one of the few filmmaker's whose entire collection I own (OK, I'm not counting Alien 3, because even he himself practically disowned the film). The fact that the film stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, even as glorious as they are in their esteemed careers and their renowned performances here, was simply icing on the cake to Fincher directing them. While these variables were the clinchers that got me to go, it was oh so much more that got me to stay, so to speak.

As I'm sure you're well aware, the film is indeed about the curious case of one Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), who was born old - a newborn with limbs brittle from arthritis and other elderly maladies like wrinkled, deformed skin - and who isn't given much chance to live by the doctors and he's even such a ghastly sight that his father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) steals the baby and leaves him on a doorstep. It's there where he's found by Queenie (Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson in a spellbinding performance), who despite his maladies, decides to care for the child. The film follows his unusual life as he grows older mentally and younger physically, and his incredible journey where, "you never know what's comin' for you."

While the comparisons to Forrest Gump can and have been made, at length, especially since both film's share the same screenwriter in the phenomenal Eric Roth, it really took another viewing to get over that stigma, even though it was so minor before. While Button certainly has the vast difference in whole reverse aging thing, the films do seem to be similar thematically and even in their narrative structure, to some extent, with Forrest's story told by himself to people waiting for a bus, and Button's story as told through a woman (Julia Ormond) reading Button's diary to her dying mother, but you have to look deeper to see that they're really quite the opposite. Forrest Gump is a film about how a man with slightly lower-than-average intelligence, managed to put a unique imprint on several lives and cultural events over the years, in his own unique way. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is really just a film about an ordinary man who lives an ordinary life - he experiences the same sorts of firsts we all do, first drink, first kiss, first job - but due to his vastly extraordinary way he ages, he experiences this normal life in a very abnormal way. It's actually a brilliant portrait in the duality of infancy and elderly behaviors, at its most subtle moments, and how they really are quite similar to one another, but the film is really just an incredible, sweeping portrait of a man's normal life, lived through abnormal circ*mstances.

In terms of storytelling and the sheer visual scope of the film - both in the enormous amount of physical locations and CGI work - I can't think of a film that has been on this grand of a scale in ages. To call this film "ambitious" is almost absurd because I don't even think there is word that can possibly describe how enormous this film is on practically every level, with any sort of authenticity. The film even has a grand scale equal to Watchmen proportions in how long it took for the film to finally be made, with the likes of Spielberg and Cruise attached at some point back in the 90s. Not only does this two-hour-and-forty-five-minute film take us all the way from Armistice Day, the end of World War I, in 1917 to nearly-modern day (right before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005), it features Brad Pitt as the title character and Cate Blanchett, as Button's true love Daisy, as these characters throughout the film, in at least some form. The younger versions of the characters are obviously played by younger actors, but it is actually Pitt and Blachett's voice throughout. When you add in all the aging (and anti-aging) work, that was done digitally and practically, the enormous set pieces, even with a few war battle scenes thrown in, the film towers over anything in terms of scope.

Adding to that, we are introduced to a glorious host of characters, from the booze-loving tugboat skipper, Captain Mike, played smashingly by Jared Harris, to Taraji P. Henson's astounding, Oscar-nominated performance as Benjamin's adopted mother Queenie, to Jason Flemying's turn as Button's father, Thomas and a host of others in the film. No matter how small a performance in the film may be, they all add a distinct texture to the film and add layers to Button's life, but of course, it is the man himself, Brad Pitt, that delivers the performance of a lifetime as Benjamin Button, a performance so subdued, yet intricate and complex, that the fact the man is still primarily seen as a sex symbol and not a bona fide incredible actor, is just beyond me. It pains me to think of Brad Pitt as an underrated actor, but the man's personal life has overshadowed his work so much that it almost seems to be the case, which is incredibly unfortunate and sad for me, especially after seeing his towering performance here. Cate Blanchett delivers in her usual glorious fashion as Daisy here, and she continues to show why she's up for Oscar's nearly every year, because she makes each character so amazingly distinct and performs each character with such indelible grace.

While Eric Roth's script, based on a screen story by Robin Swicord, which was based off the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name, is truly a work of art in itself and paced ingeniously in a way that doesn't drag like most films of similar runtimes , it is the articulate genius of director David Fincher that the true star of this film. It's Fincher's one-of-a-kind eye for detail that really is put on display in this film more than any other, and his performance at the helm, considering the immense and daunting challenges ahead of him, easily outshines any of his other amazing films to date. David Fincher has made truly a film for the ages, and while the challenge of topping this film is likely equal to the initial challenges of getting the film made in the first place, I can't wait to see what David Fincher has for us next, like always.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a stark, amazing and honest film that truly touches on what it means to be an individual. If for whatever reason you haven't seen this yet, or saw it in the theater and didn't enjoy it, I implore you to give it at least one (or one more) shot, because this poignant tribute to life simply can't be missed.

One of the awesome things about the Criterion Collection DVD's is they hardly ever skimp on the special features, and we get a heaping helping of bonus features here. The featurettes are broken down into the heading The Curious Birth of Benjamin Button, which, in turn, is broken down some more. We have First Trimester, Second Trimester, Third Timester and Birth, and it should be noted that in the tiny fine print of this menu, it says that if you hit the Play All feature, there is some material not included in that feature, which kind of defeats the purpose if you ask me, but whatever.

First Timesteer starts off with a Preface from director David Fincher, where he talks about going through his father's death, and how that experience was how he felt when he first read Eric Roth's script. We then get to Development and pre-production. It's pretty interesting how many different names were attached at this time like Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise back in the 90s and this project itself has just an interesting a timeline that the story of Benjamin Button, with tons of heavy hitters somewhat-attached at one point to this film. We hear how the script was originally was set in Baltimore and how the film probably would've have happened if they didn't move it to New Orleans. We see them scouting locations in New Orleans and it was pretty cool how they were there right after Hurricane Katrina and committed to making the film there still.

After Development and Pre-Production we get Tech Scouts and this goes through the scouting of certain locations and the logistics of what each location needs. We get scenes from the film that pop up in a small split-screen, so we can see what they're talking about, and it's just very cool seeing a masterful director like David Fincher work his movie magic. It also brings up a description in the script, to provide more context, and this is rather cool as well. Also in this First Trimester we get a few rather thorough galleries in Storyboard Gallery and Art Direction Gallery.

The Second Trimester deals with the actual production of the film, which was incredibly expansive as well. They shot the film in 145 days, which is rather insane for any production, that spanned over 200 locations, also insane. It was rather interesting that it seems most of Fincher's schedule's are fairly comparable to Button, which is likely due to the fact that Fincher isn't a proponent of incredibly-long days on the set. They show us all that went into the very brief war scene towards the beginning of the film, and, while it was only possibly a minute or so of film, there was quite a lot that went into it. We also see some stories of some of the actors like Jason Flemyng and Taraji P. Henson and they're unique experiences of how they got their parts and there is also a part about the animatronic baby they used for the opening scenes. They also get into some of the difficulties that Katrina's aftermath caused, like the trolley car scenes that they had to rig themselves and the first part of this two-part Production series ends with the wonderful story of how they found the house for the film. The second part picks up with the house and we then get some bits about the stand-in's that played Benjamin... with dotted CGI hoods on so they can superimpose Pitt's face and voice into the film. We get some wonderful tidbits about how unique a director that Fincher is, from Flemying, Henson, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond and other members of the crew as well. We also get some bits where they shot Montreal for Paris and the logistical nightmare of shooting exterior shots that were supposed to be Russia... when the weather is actually warm and the fake ice/snow was constantly melting. We also get some great stuff from Fincher's unfiltered personality, where he tells some great stories about how the Pitt/Blanchett pairing came to be, with some side stories about The Fountain (which Pitt and Blanchett were supposed to both star in originally) and Babel as well, even though they had all three been talking about this film since before both of those other films. Fincher also tells us quite an amazing story about two women who encountered Pitt on the street, and essentially lost their minds due to his celebrity. After a little less than an hour of this two-part Production featurette, we also get a featurette on the Costume Design with costume designer Jacqueline West and her process. A lot of this are some images and sketches and we hear a lot from West, over these images, talking about what she looked for in each costume. This nice little seven-minute featurette is paired with the last item from this "trimester," a gallery of costume images that you can browse through on your own.

The Third Trimester obviously deals with post-production and, since this was easily the biggest part of the whole production, it has the biggest "trimester" here as well. We start off with Visual Effects: Performance Capture, which actually gets started with a little bit of the start of editing before getting into the performance capture stuff. We see how the whole process of having Brad Pitt do his facial performance to match the body double of the actor all worked and it's pretty amazing what Brad can do, if you didn't already know, in this seven-minute segment. Visual Effects: Benjamin is next and it starts off with the SFX folks discussing Fincher's notes after a shot review, and then they talk about the sculpting work that was done - eerily amazing, might I add - those were used for references for the digital work. It gets pretty technical in this segment, and I won't even try to explain any of this, but it's really quite fantastic to see these amazing challenges involved in this aspect of the film in this 16-minute segment. Next up is Visual Effects: Youthenization and this talks about making Brad Pitt younger towards the end of the film. They talk about this fairly new technique that they called Digital Cosmetic Enhancement, or DCE. Apparently, this is one of the only films that they could talk about their work, which would lead me to believe that they must do some top-secret digital fix-ups for some big stars. It's an interesting little six-minute bit that shows some of the original and final renders and the subtle bits that they fixed up in the film. Visual Effects: The Chelsea is next, and it goes through the whole history of this tugboat in the movie. They shot a lot of the boat shots on a soundstage with an actual boat that they built and put on a huge rig to simulate movement. Basically everything that you see that's actually on the ship, in the film, is actually on the ship, and everything outside at sea, is CGI. They show us the actual footage from the soundstage, compared with the final shots with all the effects, and there's some pretty cool stuff here. They also show the big explosion and how this was created and this eight and a half minute part is just another great featurette. Visual Effects: The simulated world is next and this talks about digitally recreating these period backgrounds, basically the digital equivalent of mat painting that used to be the standard for fake backgrounds. It's pretty intriguing because a lot of this was just partial sets, and theses guys would have to fill in the rest digitally. The main example is the clock shot towards the beginning, and just the big unveiling of the clock was a physical set, and everything around it, were digitally added, and we also get some stuff from the fireworks scene towards the beginning as well and this 13-minute featurette is another wonderful addition to this DVD. Sound Design is next and even though this is probably has the potential to be the most boring segment on the whole set, (and actually starts out that way) there still are some really interesting tidbits. I was surprised to learn that the extras were just mouthing the words and they were all replaced digitally, and some of these random things that were recorded that ended up being used in the film. It's also rather amazing how Brad and the sound team came up with the gravelly voice himself and, aside from a slight pitching, that's really Pitt's voice in the opening parts of the film. Amazing. What started out rather dull turned into a very intriguing 13-minute piece. The last part of this "trimester" is Desplat's instrumentarium, which goes into the process of composer Alexandre Desplat and how he scored the film. We get some nice split-screens between the film and the orchestra recording sessions and we hear some nice bits from Desplat, talking about his minimalist methods to the score, which came across amazingly in the film. Great music in a film is almost akin to great special effects, in that the best scores and special effects are those that, at times, you won't even notice, consciously at least, and it's wonderful to see a composer like Desplat who's eager to perform scores that enhance the film, rather than show off his work as a composer. This is yet another great featurette that brings this trimester to a close.

Of course, after the three "trimesters" comes the Birth, and this segment is the shortest, with just a gallery of Production Stills, and a featurette on the film's Premiere. This starts out at a December 2008 benefit screening in New Orleans, and while we do get some brief bits from that premiere, this is just a wrap-up of the whole thing, with some final thoughts from some of the people we've seen throughout these previous special feature installments and it's a perfect way to end these amazing featurettes.

There are also Still Galleries, with Storyboards, Art Direction, Costumes and Production Stills, that are set aside for easy perusal, which were previously included in earlier chapters of the special features, and there are two Trailers as well. All in all, these special features are easily some of the best I've ever seen and EASILY make for the best DVD release so far in 2009. Bar none. This is a MUST-OWN for any serious film buff or DVD collector, so stop reading this and buy it NOW.

This film is presented gloriously in the widescreen format in the massive 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

The sound is handled through the Dolby Digital 5.1 format.

Like most Criterion releases, they give us some elegant artwork with this two-disc set. The front is set in black with an unusual shot of Pitt and Blanchett... only with the right side of Pitt's face and the left side of Blanchett's face cropped exactly down the middle, with their names above the shot and the title below. The slipcover features a "Director Approved" sticker with director David Fincher's signature. The back features a lovely synopsis, three small images from the film, a large list of special features and a tiny billing block below, with the tech specs and a little description of what Criterion does, on the right side. Another great packaging set from the Criterion folks.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is truly a cinematic sight to behold. This towering achievement of a film will surely go down in the history books as a true classic and this amazing DVD edition is a wonderful way to watch the film and delve deep inside this work of art.