The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button Review

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button review



The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not the movie I would recommend to anyone, who wants to waste some time, chewing something crispy and staring at the screen indifferently – as this one is not for a vacuous entertainment. But as if it isn’t obvious, taking into consideration the 160 minutes duration of the movie – at which most people complain, finding it tedious, if not tiresome. Yes and all this - unhurried narration, leisurely music, unobtrusive effects - it is not, what we all would expect from David Fincher, best known for cold and striking works, who made this significant «change-of-pace» in his Hollywood storytelling, demolishing well-established notion of his pictures – but in a curious way, of course. And this whole concept of this is put in the tagline:
«Life isn't measured in minutes, but in moments»
Well, I can say, that «The Curious Case of Benjamin Button» moment leaves a very pleasant aftertaste for ones, who fulfilled the story with their own thoughtful reflections of it, giving truly accomplishment to the sweet-hearted picture, which was brought to perfection by top masters and wizards in the categories of cinematography, editing, screenplay, art direction, sound mixing, costume design, special visual effects, makeup and original musical score.
This is also a movie with really strong performances, most praiseworthy those by ladies - Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett, all at the top of their games. The acting of Brad Pitt is by far his best performance as everyone admits.

The plot of the story starts with elderly Daisy Williams nee Fuller is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital. At her side is her adult daughter, Caroline whom she asks to read to her aloud the diary of her friend, Benjamin Button.
Benjamin's diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, the primary unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being born an oldie who is misshapen and was diagnosed with several aged diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time, getting his real infancy in senile age. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button, after Benjamin's biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin, who due to all the circumstance was supposed to be nearly doomed to be lonely, humiliated, being mocked at – was found and raised by Queenie, a heart warming, and loving black woman, unable to have a child of her own, and caregiver at a seniors home, where life seems to be out of time.
Ah, implacable time!~
Someone tries to trick it - like blind clockmaker, who built a clock, measuring time backwards as he wished that time move backwards so that the events of the war can be reversed and that all the soldiers who died - like his son did - could return to their families.
Someone tries to go with the times, like red-haired ballet-dancer Daisy, lifelong friend and only true love of Benjamin - so insecure, yet having an unceasing struggle with time for her dreams. 
Someone just go against it, not even realizing this, like Benjamin.
And we just follow the story of his life, in which lives of those many passers-by he encounters, interesting, funny and tragic – interweaving: skillful and emotional preacher who makes him walk, hot-tempered and hard-drinking tugboat captain, who see himself as an artist; 
tending to simple life pleasures, yet wordly-wise pygmy, unhappily married sophisticated woman, who attempted to swim the English Channel or clumsy old chap, who has been struck by lightning seven times and many, many others. They all do appear, disappear, and then reappear again, sharing their life’s wisdom, their experience with Benjamin and us. Time changes, the inexorable course of history changes as well, yet life is priceless - all things aside, and make the most of it. Year by year and step by step. New people, new ages. 
But we can only imagine how hard it is for Benjamin to live his life from a wheelchair to cradle and to see that all that years, he had in past, are waiting for people around him, and what they bring with them - decrepit state, feeble bones, weak eyesight.
The short moment of happiness with Daisy when they're both the same age – when they "meet in the middle" – is a culmination of his life. But, alas! They're fated to head in opposite directions, time-travelers on different median strips, it is the thing to be accepted, yet... In any way, we all goin' the same way, right?

Intentionally, Eric Roth doesn’t let us to hear all conversations and inner thoughts of our heroes, sometimes various events, we see speechlessly fading into one another, leaving us to be provoked by our own thoughts of our own lives and to see it, as it is - indescribably beautiful, a bit dramatic, rich in ironies both funny and bitter, slightly absurd, yet, undoubtedly, curious case of Benjamin Button. 

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