Live Like You're Dying: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Reviewed

On first glance, it might be surprising that David Fincher would tackle something as loving and simple as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. After all, this is the same person who put Gwenyth Paltrow's head in a box; who shot Edward Norton in the face; and who watched the masked Zodiac Killer brutally stab to young lovers in broad daylight. But while Benjamin Button isn't violent, it might wrack up a bigger body count than any of Mr. Fincher's other works combined.

The dying starts from minute one. On the eve of Hurricane Katrina, we're introduced to Daisy. She's in the last stages of life, lying in a hospital bed in New Orleans with her harried daughter, Caroline, sitting by her side. Daisy wants to hear some passages from a diary in her bag before she shuffles off, and--wouldn't you know it--the diary belonged to Benjamin Button, Daisy's life-long love. And so, as Caroline starts reading from the tattered book, we're thrown into Benjamin's life story. This would be all be normal of course, but for the fact that Benjamin was born an old man and spends his life aging backwards. If that sounds familiar, it's because the film is based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story.

Cate Blanchett plays Daisy throughout the film (it even seemed like she dubbed the voice for the younger versions of her character), and it's a wonderful and full-bodied performance. Ms. Blanchett's work is stunning. Yes, she physically ages with the help of some great make-up, but the emotional layers she adds as the movie goes along are all her doing. Ms. Blanchett is really playing four different people--she's old and dying; greying and matronly; middle-aged and resigned; and young and stupid--and the results are a character that is bursting with humanity. It might be the best work of her career, so naturally she didn't get an Oscar nomination for it.

However as good as Ms. Blanchett is, the movie simply wouldn't work without Brad Pitt. In fact, there doesn't seem to be another actor who could have carried off this film. Benjamin Button draws on the appeal of "Brad Pitt". His movie star good looks we've seen on film for the better part of two decades add weight to the performance because we know as he gets better looking he gets closer to death. Of course much has been made of the visual effects in the early part of the film, when Mr. Pitt's face is digitally grafted onto the bodies of old men. While not entirely seamless, the trick works, mostly because of Mr. Pitt's wide-eyed insouciance. In those early scenes, Benjamin is a man-child and Mr. Pitt seems to have much fun with all that entails.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent as well, not surprising in a David Fincher film. There isn't one false note from any of the performers. Jason Flemyng plays Benjamin's estranged father, and his three scenes are devastatingly good; Tilda Swinton shows up as his first non-Daisy girlfriend and uses her cougar charms to great effect (hilarious since Benjamin is still an "old man" while she woos him); Julia Ormand is sympathetic as Caroline, reminding everyone why she was such an It-Girl in the early 90s; and Jared Harris, as the crazy drunken tugboat captain that becomes Benjamin's first true friend, adds a bit of levity to the proceedings that are much needed. But, as his adoptive mother, Taraji P. Henson stands out most amongst the supporting players. Charming, funny, motherly and loving without ever seeming mawkish, her Oscar nomination is well-deserved. And while she seems like an also-ran when placed with the other actresses in the category, I'll take her work her over Voila Davis' one scene in Doubt any day of the week.

Visually there can be no discussion about how good The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is. Mr. Fincher bathes the film in browns, creams and candlelight, pausing for only brief splashes of color--Daisy's red dress and strikingly blue eyes. Benjamin Button could literally be a silent film and you'd still get all you needed to know about the story from the images and Alexandre Desplat's unbelievable score. While I still might prefer some of his other movies from a content standpoint, Benjamin Button is easily the most visually stunning film of Mr. Fincher's career-to-date.

There have been criticisms of Benjamin Button because of its similarities to Forrest Gump, but that just seems like a simplistic way to look at things. Eric Roth wrote the scripts for both films, and while there are some nods to Forrest Gump on the surface of Benjamin Button, I don't think they could be more dissimilar. As a character, Benjamin doesn't really accomplish anything magnificent in life; he just lives his life. And along the way, while he might hit some historical benchmarks (he was born at the end of World War I; he gets dumped on December 7th, 1941; he watches the Beatles on Ed Sullivan with Daisy), they don't have anything to do with the actual plot. Forrest, on the other hand, seemed to only exist so he could parade through every modern historic event from the past sixty years. He was a cinematic visage like Zelig, but by way of "We Didn't Start the Fire".

More importantly though is the tone and timbre of the two films. Underneath all its greeting card slogans and sentiments, Forrest Gump was a movie about living life to the fullest, no matter what kind of obstacles get in the way. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, on the other hand, is about dying. It's about being able to make peace with your life and the decisions you've made before you close your eyes for the final time. Do you want to end up filled with regret at the end? Or do you want to take solace in the life you led? Because of this, Benjamin Button is a heartbreaking movie, but one with an underlying message of hopefulness. The end comes for everyone, but it's never too late to change course on your road to the end.

Comparing The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to Forrest Gump would be like comparing The Sopranos to Analyze This. You can do it, but you'd be missing the point. And in doing so, you'd be missing one of the very best films of 2008.