"Curious is classic."
Every decade, there are a handful of movies that linger with you long after their credits have rolled and the vagaries of life have waged. The passing of time only makes them more indelible. These are classics, this is "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
Director David Fincher (Fight Club/Seven/Zodiac) has masterfully shaded a short story written by literary icon F. Scott Fitzgerald into a beautiful epic about the constraint that fleeting time has on our lives. It's equally entertaining and thought provoking.
Brad Pitt portrays the titular Benjamin Button, a man who ages in reverse. This Oscar shoe-in bests Pitt's & Fincher's previous "Fight Club" collaboration as their best work.
Pitt gracefully depicts his character who is born as an eighty something aged baby who appears as an abomination of nature, left behind on a stranger's porch steps by his father after his biological mother dies from childbirth. A black woman, Queenie, the great Taraji Henson (Hustle & Flow) takes him in and raises him as her own in a nursing home where she toils away. At the onset, he is embattled with the infirmities of age without the benefit of wisdom accrued from a lifetime of experiences. Later, as he grows younger and conversely wiser, he sacrifices himself by leaving who he loves. This original conceit has the audience live along with him as he discovers life's pleasures, pains and self examinations. It works amazingly well.
Fincher's "Button" dabbles in alot of sentimentality, but, it's never mawkish. His direction perfectly balances poignancy, splendor and moments of levity (the guy who gets struck by lightning perpetually is laugh out loud). The movie's message of death distilling our purpose is conveyed through several passings of characters that have imbued Benjamin's life. All told in flashbacks from the reading of Cate Blanchett's scrapbook of their time together while she is dying, an old lady, in a hospital during the impending Hurricane Katrina that wreaked havoc upon New Orleans in 2005.
It took many years for this filmic adaption to be realized because other directors interested in this project had alot of difficulty in realistically portraying aging backwards. Fincher crafted technology that digitally grafted Pitt's age-appropriate head onto the various body forms as needed. The computer and makeup effects are seamlessly stunning. "Button" is the epitome of using special effects judiciously to enhance the story, not overwhelm it. I'm sure it will win an effects award in addition to acting and best picture Oscar nominations.
Running at nearly 3 hours, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a bit indulgent, however, time well spent forward.
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