The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

[n2doop5u]

Hmm... this should be a thread but I looked and did not find it. So perhaps I skipped over it... if so, I'm sorry.

This movie is great. Its beautiful and Brad Pitt is amazing. I'm sure everyone knows the story by now. I was actually astounded by how much the "gimmick" isn't adressed. It takes the idea of a man aging backwards and uses it to comment on life and death and everything in between. I, for one, am not a person who really enjoys epics. Sure, I'll watch them and obviously there are cases where I love them but I think movies that incorporate the entierty of someone's life are lazy. There are enough exciting moments in everyones life to create a movie out of them, movies that enter us into a specific setting and character are much harder to achieve. However, this movie showed me what one can accomplish with an entire life on screen. This movie focuses on those beautiful small moments in Bejamin's life, those moments that are big for him and not for the audience. I couldn't love this movie more. There are definitely going to be people who don't dig it because it isn't all that exciting. This isn't even a David Fincher movie, really. It's not like his normal stuff. I say see it.

[The Zapper]

I loved this movie. It was a little long, but worth the viewing. I recommend it to anyone how thinks they might like it.

[the goddamn batman]

This isn't even a David Fincher movie, really. It's not like his normal stuff. I say see it.

What does that even mean? I don't think Fincher's pigeonholed himself as a director at all.

I haven't seen it yet, but am very much looking forward to it.

[Damiean Dark]

Is it Oscar worthy?.

[Shadowfax32]

Is it Oscar worthy?.

It's Best Picture worthy. The whole three hours, I never looked at my watch. Twice the audience gasped as Pitt ages backward. Was that Cate Blanchett as elderly Daisy in the hospital?

[2-4-5_Trioxin]

That was the best movie I have seen this year easily. I felt like a big ole pussy cause I cried (like teary eyed not outright bawling hehe) and sniffly like 3 times in this movie. It really was great, I mean I knew it would be good because david fincher is like one of my top 5 directors but no one else could have directed the movie this well.

Im not a brad pitt fan really but he has gotten better as he has gotten older but this was really perfect for him. I especially loved his narration during the movie, I couldnt help but hang on every word he said.

For being 3 hours it seemed like 90 minutes, the pacing was great, acting was solid, I loved every character in the movie, the storyline in it was damn excellent.

I just hope this movie gets the recognition it deserves because its outstanding. It was well worth every penny I spent on the ticket.

Oh and if you can, go see it in a theater that has a good sound system. The sounds draw you in as much as anything else.

[J. Robb]

It was a well-made movie, but I felt there wasn't much to it. If you took most of the humour out of "Forrest Gump", you'd have a pretty dull movie full of Hallmark card philosophy, and that's how I felt about "Benjamin Button".

Brad Pitt staring silently may seem thoughtful and deep one or two times, but when that's all he does, he might as well be in the audience watching along with the rest of us.

[drwho]

I watched the first few minutes, but did his mother literally give birth to an old man, or did he get old and something happen to start turning him young again?

[Kaos]

She gave birth to an oldman baby.

It was alright, was a little long tho.

[Mike Pothier]

It was a well-made movie, but I felt there wasn't much to it. If you took most of the humour out of "Forrest Gump", you'd have a pretty dull movie full of Hallmark card philosophy, and that's how I felt about "Benjamin Button".

Brad Pitt staring silently may seem thoughtful and deep one or two times, but when that's all he does, he might as well be in the audience watching along with the rest of us.

Thats what I felt as well. Benjamin Button seemed like one of the least interesting characters in the movie.

I wanted more of the captain.

[arp2008]

In my book, the best picture of the year second only to TDK. Remarkable peice of filmaking. It reminded me a little of Forest Gump a little while watching.

[Gary_B]

It's was a very well crafted film with some great performances but it didn't quite gel into something that filled me with awe. I didn't notice that it was long but I guess that's not something on my radar. Benjamin's passage through time was fascinating to witness and Fincher's attention to detail really made it successful. One thing my wife and I discussed was the hummingbird. It was cool to see the hummingbird manifest when the tugboat captain died, and that made sense because it was established earlier that he identified with hummingbirds and even had one tattooed on his body. But why have one appear to Cate Blanchett's character when Benjamin died?) Just a quibble.

[Maxwell Edison]

The movie was great but it weas hard to fully enjoy it with a migraine the whole time. I'll appreciate it more when I get the dvd

[LtMarvel]

Good film.

I think the filmmakers should have acknowledged Benjamin Button's leaving his family as a mistake. BB didn't know how long he had. He could have raised his daughter to teenager or early adulthood. I mean, life throws everyone some curves. I also quibble with Ben dying as an infant. How did he lose all that body mass?, but the second one could be written off as fantasy..

I really thought I sat through a great novel, overall.

Entertainment Weekly listed this film as one of the likely Oscar nods for best pic, best director, best supporting actress, best adapted screenplay and best lead actor. (No love for Blanchett?)

[Ryan Day]

Good film.

I think the filmmakers should have acknowledged Benjamin Button's leaving his family as a mistake. BB didn't know how long he had. He could have raised his daughter to teenager or early adulthood. I mean, life throws everyone some curves. I also quibble with Ben dying as an infant. How did he lose all that body mass?, but the second one could be written off as fantasy..

Those both really bugged me - the first seemed selfish, the second absurd. The big problem with the movie is that it had a lot of neat ideas that didn't really withstand any sort of critical thought. For example, the series of events that leads to Blanchett's accident - it's a neat sequence, but it makes no sense because the story is being told from Benjamin's POV. He doesn't have access to all that information.

I found the characters pretty uninteresting, too. Benjamin never actually does anything. He wanders around being a nice guy, falls in love, and that's that; he makes no sacrifices, overcomes no challenges. And Blanchett, who I normally love, was irritating for the first half of the movie, and dull in the second half.

I liked Tilda Swinton, though.

[Black Atom]

Considering the main conceit of the whole thing is tied into a magical clock, it seems silly to talk about it holding up to critical thought.

I had the same complaint as others in that Benjamin seems to be the least interesting character in the movie. He doesn't really do much, including develop as a character. That could work, sort like how Forrest Gump remains, basically, the same as the world around him changes dramatically, but he influences the lives of everyone around him. Ben sorta does that, but it seems there's long stretches of him just by himself that aren't really interesting.

[Ryan Day]

Considering the main conceit of the whole thing is tied into a magical clock, it seems silly to talk about it holding up to critical thought.


There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's basic logic. I don't demand reality - I don't even want it - but I do want some sense of logic and consistency. The premise of the film is that a guy is born as an old man and ages backwards: Okay. I can accept that. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have bothered seeing the movie.

But: regressing into an actual baby? If he was born old-but-baby-sized, why would he end up baby-sized at the end?

And if the the story is being told from one character's perspective, you can't suddenly go outside that parameter and switch to an omniscient narrator. That's an easy one to avoid, too - they could have prefaced it with something like "I think about all the things that might have happened differently", or "what if..." But no, it's presented as a comprehensive and definitive sequence events in the lives of several people, most of which would not be known to a single person.

In general, a lot of the characters' actions are illogical, or at least presented in an overly-sentimental fashion: Benjamin abandons his daughter because he's afraid he won't be able to care for her. Daisy marries another man and keeps Benjamin's identity secret from her daughter until she's on her deathbed. She cheats on her husband when Benjamin returns. And she apparently moves into a retirement home to care for a baby for several years without her daughter finding out about it at all.

It might be sweet and romantic on the surface, but a lot of it is just selfish or silly.

[Black Atom]

There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's basic logic. I don't demand reality - I don't even want it - but I do want some sense of logic and consistency. The premise of the film is that a guy is born as an old man and ages backwards: Okay. I can accept that. If I couldn't, I wouldn't have bothered seeing the movie.

It is consistent. The premise is basically magic. There was no scientific explanation given. The fact that he didn't die in childbirth itself or shortly thereafter, given the condition he was born in, is inherently illogical. It's like getting mad at the talking trees in Lord of the Rings.

And if the the story is being told from one character's perspective, you can't suddenly go outside that parameter and switch to an omniscient narrator. That's an easy one to avoid, too - they could have prefaced it with something like "I think about all the things that might have happened differently", or "what if..." But no, it's presented as a comprehensive and definitive sequence events in the lives of several people, most of which would not be known to a single person.

I thought about that as well, but it's not a huge problem since a) there is precedent for first-person omniscient perspective in story-telling (though it would've been better to have that consistently throughout) and b) we can assume Ben was giving us the events in a "What if?" scenario, which is what I did. It wasn't a huge sticking point for me.

In general, a lot of the characters' actions are illogical, or at least presented in an overly-sentimental fashion: Benjamin abandons his daughter because he's afraid he won't be able to care for her. Daisy marries another man and keeps Benjamin's identity secret from her daughter until she's on her deathbed. She cheats on her husband when Benjamin returns. And she apparently moves into a retirement home to care for a baby for several years without her daughter finding out about it at all.

It might be sweet and romantic on the surface, but a lot of it is just selfish or silly.

I agree with you here. I did have a problem with. First for the reason you said and second because it cops out of the major emotional conflict the premise sets up.