<om the guy who brought us Fight Club and Seven, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a new kind of movie. A simple coming of age tale-in reverse-- replaces plots of serial killers and loonies. There may not be a shocker twist ending, but Benjamin Button is just as wellmade, watchable and, in a quiet way, as powerful as David Fincher’s famous films.
Brad Pitt as Benjamin is a naïve and optimistic ForestGump type who is born old. The movie does little to explain how or why this could be (a sad and magic clock?), but in Benjamin Button’s world it is little more than abnormal and maybe a little weird. It’s best if we suspend logic and accept that Benjamin will age backwards through the film–truly incredible CGI and makeup effects make this easy to do. An infirm Benjamin grows up at a nursing home where he befriends young Daisy (Cate Blanchett) who regularly visits her grandmother. This is the love story (although Benjamin meets older, married Tilda Swinton and loads of other friends on his way to Daisy.) Of course, their love is doomed since Benjamin will continually get younger; its all very sweet and sad, and makes you think about life and death and the in between.
This movie will look amazing on the big screen in Olin.The filming is really very stunning—I’m thinking of Blanchett’s ballet scene, Benjamin’s travels, his time in Russia, and especially the vignettes of mini stories that pop up throughout the film. Benjamin Button is most of all a love story to New Orleans, beginning and ending amidst approaching hurricane Katrina. It seems everyone involved in this film—Fincher, these excellent actors, the make-up and CGI departments, the cinematographers worked to make this film polished and beautiful and it really is.