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RATING:  
I might as well come right out and say it: Yes, I cried during The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Even if I am known to be a sentimental fool at times, I am usually not a chronic bawler at movies I review. These tears say quite a lot, okay?
Credit for the waterworks must go to an impeccably strong source material: F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1920s short story.
But the ridiculously compelling and strangely heart-rending story of Benjamin Button, a man who ages in reverse, and all his little adventures is made even more charming with excellent turns by Cate Blanchett as Daisy, the ballerina who captures Benjamin’s heart; Tilda Swinton as his short-lived dalliance; and Taraji P Henson as his ever-loving surrogate mother.
Pretty boy movie star Brad Pitt is surprisingly competent as the titular Button but does not deserve his Oscar nod.
Detractors might say stretching Fitzgerald’s slender, unsentimental short into an expansive 166-minute major motion picture (it really is a tad too long) is a misstep, but the success of Forrest Gump will tell you audiences love the “life-love-epic” — heart-tugs and all. And so do the 13 Oscar nominations the film has racked up.
The film’s sheer vastness, covering a lifetime with cinematic flourishes and jaw-dropping special ageing effects make it an epic success.
Director David Fincher, in a 180-degree turn from previous macabre outings such as Se7en and Fight Club, manages to create an alternately romantic, haunting, poignant, funny, melancholic journey that resonates, in spite of its length.
But it is not without its nicks and dents. Given the arc of the story, the movie effectively climaxes in the middle, feeling like it’s over before it begins to end. Button as a character also begins to wane, starting off as the most interesting and ending off the most bland.
That said, Fincher, his cast and technical team charmingly triumph with a film as gentle and curious as its protagonist.
- TODAY/yb
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