The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Movie Review
Mighty)
Through time. Through space. Through culture and age. I watched the extraordinary life of a man born under unusual circumstances unfold.
W
ith coffee bun and capuccino in hand, we entered the Cinema at The Block. It was a great movie. That much I can say. How I wish the Curious Case of Benjamin Button was shown way before Baler. The latter would have learned lots of lessons in creating a really good period film.
As I promised a few days back, I’m presenting my movie review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
A Snapshot
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opens with the scene of a lady on her deathbed relating the story of Mr. Ghetto who built a giant clock with hands running backwards. That set the stage of the whole movie dealing with time, life and death.
Benjamin had the really curious case of being born old. Imagine a kid being in the small and frail body of an eighty year-old man! He was a freak! And he looked a lot like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
He was so ugly that his father, still shocked from the trauma of his wife’s death, took him to the Home for the Elderly in New Orleans. Thankfully, Queenie, the matron of the house took him in and raised him as her own son. Through the years, Benjamin grew younger and because he was different, he developed a habit of watching his world unfold before his eyes!
He met the love of his life–Daisy, who saw through his age into the boy within.
As Daisy grew older, Benjamin grew younger, at least physically. As he aged backwards, he explored the world from the tugboat of Captain Mike who initiated him to manhood; to the hotel and into the illicit arms of Elizabeth Abbott; to the middle of the sea with World War 2 crashing on them; to New York with Daisy’s bohemian lifestyle; back to New Orleans and Queenie’s house; into the arms of Daisy and the family they tried to build; to the rest of world and finally back to New Orleans as a demented old child.
It was a three-hour movie but I hardly felt the time. You know that you really love a movie when you simply don’t want to go to the restroom for fear that you’ll miss something! Hahah. My bladder had to endure 3 hours!
I Like…
I love the way that Benjamin Button transported me through time and space through the amazing cinematography, the Sepia color of the first half of the film, the architecture, even the Southern accent. I felt like I was really looking at pre-World War II United States.
Isn’t it amazing to see the first models of Ford Model T and then look at how it developed into more elegant automobiles! You see folks, when you transport viewers to a different time and place, do it fully and completely: not just halfway!
The CGI was equally amazing! The animators and effects people managed to make Brad Pitt look eighty and eighteen! Cate Blanchett was stunningly beautiful when she was made to look like nineteen and twenty six. That’s not to say that she’s not beautiful as she is now. The thing is, the CGI was so effective that I was stunned by her beauty.
I loved the metaphor all over the story. Did you ever notice the clock appearing at different places and at different times in the story? The big big clock at the beginning, the clock at the story book, the alarm clock that told Daisy her time with Benjamin was over and countless other clocks that appeared in the movie. Even Hurricane Katrina was one big metaphor in the life of Caroline, the daughter of Benjamin and Daisy, and in the lives of all people.
In spite of the contemplative and melancholic mood of the movie, it surprisingly have a sense of humor through the lives of old men and women who are on the twilight of their lives. “Have I ever told I got struck by lightning seven times…” That one got me laughing!
The scene of the flood taking over the room with the clock was a kind of poetry and summary of the central theme of Benjamin Button. Time, like a flood, takes us all in its rising tide.
I Kinda Hate…
I was so mesmerized and delighted by the movie that I have some difficulty thinking of stuff I kinda hate about the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Hmmm… the movie kinda resembled Titanic where the old woman, Rose, related her love story with Jack.
The movie also smacked of melancholy and seriousness. It was like Benjamin Button became a philosopher of some kind trying to chronicle his weird life.
The movie had some sentimentality that almost became overdone in some places. Thankfully it didn’t.
On the Whole
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a treatise on life and how temporal everything is. It is a melancholic reflection on the connections we make to the people around us. The movie offers us advice to live life to the fullest and to never be afraid to start all over because in the end the tide of time and death will take us all.
Even without the feel good, motivational value of the movie, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an engaging movie that doesn’t make you feel like its running time is 3 hours! It’s a great watch and might be featured as a movie of the month here at Penstalker.com
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Directed by David Fincher
Screenplay by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
| 2.9 (5 people) |
it was a little weird to see an old version of Brad Pitt’s face pasted onto a kid’s body, but i guess that’s why they call it a “curious case”
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the movie was amazing! I loved it.
Hello Chrisette, thanks for visiting my site. I really loved the movie, too.
This movie was good, but I don’t know that it deserved the slew of Oscar nominations it received.
Thanks so much for writing all of the excellent information! Looking forward to checking out more posts!