By Pete Hammond
Story
Spanning from WWI to the 21st century, Eric Roth’s screenplay (based loosely on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald) tells the unique story of a man named Benjamin Button (
Brad Pitt). He is born in New Orleans as a very old baby, the equivalent of a man in his 80s, who then ages backward into youth over the better part of a century. The film is told in flashback by a very old, dying woman Daisy (
Cate Blanchett), who recounts her tale to her daughter (Julia Ormond) from a hospital bed during Hurricane Katrina. Left on the doorstep of a retirement home one night by his father (
Jason Flemyng), Benjamin is brought up by Queenie (
Taraji P. Henson), who runs the place. While there he meets a young girl, Daisy, who will become a key figure -- romantically and otherwise -- in his life. Ben does have some grand adventures: He goes to work on a boat, sees sea battles during WWII, finds love with an older married woman (
Tilda Swinton) -- and gets progressively younger as the decades fly by. It all manages to be alternately haunting, romantic, funny, epic, emotional and incredibly moving and will likely to stay with you a lifetime.
Acting
Brad Pitt manages to deliver a thoughtful and subtle performance through all the special effects makeup and CGI. He does so much just by using his eyes.
Cate Blanchett is equally fine as she plays Daisy from a teenager to an old woman and matches Pitt in bringing an entire lifetime skillfully to light. Her aging makeup is completely natural and she’s very moving in the hospital scenes opposite Ormond. Henson is just marvelous as Queenie, a warm and understanding soul. Swinton is elegant and memorable in her few crucial encounters with Ben and plays beautifully off Pitt.
Jared Harris (TV’s
The Riches) as the colorful Captain Mike, who hires Ben on his tug boat, and
Flemyng (
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), as Ben’s father, are also effective in their brief screen time.
Direction
Interestingly,
Benjamin Button has been gestating for decades in the Hollywood firmament but needed time for the proper technology to catch up to it. Director
David Fincher (
Zodiac,
Fight Club) with his early background at
George Lucas’ ILM, proves to be the perfect choice to marry a compelling story with spectacular visual effects achievement. He did not want to do the film unless the technology allowed one actor to play the role throughout the course of the film. Remarkably, they were able to achieve this superimposing Brad Pitt’s face and eyes into all the incarnations of Ben Button. In one sequence, Pitt looks just like he did in
Thelma and Louise. It’s an amazing feat. He has seamlessly created a unique universe without ever bringing attention to it, advancing the art of screen storytelling leaps and bounds ahead of everything else that has come before.
Benjamin Button is a plaintive and provocative meditation of life, death and what we do while we are here. It’s the stuff of dreams.