The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Movie Review)

This isn't exactly a feel-good holiday movie. If you are in need of a post-holiday pick-me-up, you might want to avoid this one.

However, if you want to see a quality movie with some depth, this is a good choice, though the overall message is a little unclear. It's based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but in reading some other reviews, it sounds as though the only thing the movie has in common with the story is a man who is born old and ages backwards. Having never read the story, I have to take their word for it. It's also been noted that the story was much more humorous than the movie. The movie had some humorous moments, but mostly it was a drama rather than a comedy.

At the beginning of the movie, an old woman dying in her hospital bed has her daughter read aloud from a diary. The diary was written by Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), and the story is told through flashbacks. It is the story of Benjamin's life, as well as the love story between Benjamin and Daisy (Cate Blanchett).

Benjamin was born at the end of the first World War. His mother died in childbirth, and his father was horrified by Benajmin's appearance--he was the size of a baby, but looked like an old man. He took the baby away and left him on the doorstep of a retirement home. The retirement home was run by a woman named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), who ended up raising him.

Benjamin actually fit in quite well at the retirement home, not understanding that he was actually a child. He looked like another old man in a wheelchair, albeit a short one who was not in complete possession of his mental faculties. He eventually grew taller and didn't need to use the wheelchair anymore. He was still an old man, physically when he met Daisy, the love of his life, who was a child at the time.

Of course, he and Daisy didn't get together for years, until the point when they sort of met in the middle in age. But of course, any romance with Benjamin was doomed in the long term, and that was the tragedy of his life in general. It would have to be very lonely to be moving in the opposite direction from everyone else.

The movie is very interesting in that Benjamin had a fascinating life, and visually stunning with great special effects. But the overall themes--time is cruel, we all die in the end no matter how we get there--aren't exactly uplifting. Adding to the ominous tone is the fact that the old woman in the hospital (who turns out to be Daisy) and her daughter who is reading Benjamin's diary are in a hospital in New Orleans right before and then right as Hurricane Katrina is hitting. If there is some more uplifting message embedded in the storyline, I'm not getting it. I guess one could argue that despite a serious obstacle, Benjamin made the best of things and led the best life he could, but even considering this, I still don't consider the movie very uplifting.