The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is directed by David Fincher, who previously has directed Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac as his most popular movies (also Alien 3, The Game, and Panic Room). It stars Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button, a man who is born old and ages in reverse, ending up as a baby when he's 80 or so years old. Cate Blanchett plays Daisy, the love of his life that he continues to strive to get for many years.

The movie is simply stunning and terrific.

There's not much else to say here, really. It's just a fantastic film, all over. The visual effects are, of course, the big thing everyone is talking about because they're absolutely seamless. None of the crap that was in The Day the Earth Stood Still -- these are visual effects made by extremely talented person, and overseen by one of the biggest experts on digital technology today.

The story is a very moving and poignant work by Eric Roth, the writer for Forest Gump, which Button is being compared to a lot. Both are expansive and epic stories told about the life of a single person over decades, and both involve significant dedication to visual effects and technology advancement.

It's a romance movie, that really isn't that sentimental, but also is very moving. It can't be much simpler to state than: it's a movie about death. Hardly the thing of romance. But from beginning to end, death is the theme, from Benjamin being raised in an old person's home constantly being visited by "an old friend" to the fact that no one really knows when Benjamin is going to die, since they don't know anything about his condition (and we never learn -- no explanation, just happens, go with it). It addresses loss and grief throughout, and the need to overcome that. When Benjamin's relationship with a woman ends, this is quite nicely summed up as "it ran it's course."

It's amazing that this movie even got made, honestly. Think of the practical difficulties: you're taking an actor and having to make them look older and younger, throughout a majority of the film. And doing that with more than one actor. And having it be convincing, and flawless (Brad Pitt's make up took 5 hours every day, for instance). You can begin to understand why the first pre-production phase on this movie was in 1994, and was passed around to various directors like Speilberg, Ron Howard, and Spike Jonze before being made by Fincher. That's really for the best, because if it was made earlier, it probably would not have been anywhere as good since it just wouldn't have the authenticity factor. That's the key thing with the effects: they're so wonderful to look at, but you can't really tell where they are, aside from the times when you "know" it has to be an effect (IE: really old Brad Pitt at 7 years old). But, in other instances, the effects are just as good, but they're subtler so you don't notice them -- because they're not meant to be noticed. Odds are, if you were to try to find exactly which were effects in which scenes, you'd miss half of them. Odds are, there's not a shot in the film that doesn't have a visual effect of some kind in it.

I really can't stress how wonderful this movie is. It looks beautiful, the acting is without any problems, the story is never dull and without it's pull, and really the only downside is the length at two and a half hours (159 minutes). But that's not a bother to me, it's well worth sitting through every minute of it. It maybe the only film of the year to rival The Dark Knight for overall best, and at this point I'd be tempted to give it to Button.

Oh, and when you go to see it, don't bring a fucking gun. Ok? Ok. My theatre was packed, so, odds are there's going to be one asshole in the theatre.