THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON  

By: Mario Bautista

THE STORY of a man who is born old then ages backwards is more suited for a science fiction movie. But in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, Director David Fincher has fashioned a haunting romantic drama inspired by a story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (”The Great Gatsby”) in 1922. Fincher just got the main idea then came out with something totally different with what the original author has in mind.

The film opens in August 2005 just as the disastrous Hurricane Katrina is going on rampage at New Orleans, Louisiana. A woman named Daisy (Cate Blanchett), 80 years old, is dying on her hospital bed with her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) beside her. She asks Caroline to read to her the diary of one Benjamin Button, whose own life is intertwined with that of Daisy.

Daisy is shown every now and then supplying the missing parts of the story that starts with a blind clockmaker, Monsieur Gateau (Elias Koteas), who makes a huge clock for the New Orleans train station in 1918. The clock runs backward, intentionally made so by Gateau to bring back his son and other soldiers who died in World War I. Benjamin is born on that time. He’s only a tiny baby but already looks an old man. His mom dies after giving birth to him while his father, Thomas (Jason Flemyng), leaves him on the steps of nursing home after seeing his hideous Gollum-like appearance.

He is found by a black girl, Queenie (Taraji Henson), who takes good care of him even if he looks like a freak. By the time he’s seven years old, he looks more like a doddering old man of 80. But with each year, he becomes younger and younger. He is 13 when he first meets a young girl named Daisy who is visiting her grandmother in the nursing home. She becomes his one true love. It will take so many years before they will each other again. As Daisy grows older, he grows younger until their ages meet and their love affair is consummated.

The story can be divided into three parts. The first one shows Benjamin’s childhood where an old woman teaches him to play the piano and he hears various stories from the nursing home residents. A friend of Queenie’s lover takes him out of the nursing home for the first time then abandons him and he looks for his way to return home.

The next segment revolves around the Second World War when Benjamin serves in the tugboat of Captain Mike (Jared Harris) who teaches him how to drink and introduces him to women through a prostitute. At the brothel, he meets Thomas, now a rich man, who befriends him but doesn’t tell him he’s his dad. He later has a relationship in Russia with a woman, Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), wife of a British spy. He survives a U-boat attack in the Atlantic and returns home looking younger and more robust than when he left.

The third part shows the hero in his middle age when he realizes that happiness in life involves some sacrifices. He meets Daisy again as a ballet dancer in New York who’s already involved with another guy. Daisy has an accident in Paris and becomes unable to dance. When he visits her in the hospital and she sees him as someone of her own age, she blurts out: “You’re perfect!” But she drives him away and he returns to New Orleans only to meet again years later when their romance finally blossoms in full.

The film’s director, David Fincher, is the same one of who gave us such violent outings as “Fight Club” and “Seven” (both also starring Brad Pitt) and “Zodiac”. This dreamy work that offers spellbinding storytelling is definitely different from his past movies. It has a quiet power that absorbs you from the start up to the very moving ending. If you feel that it has a certain Forrest Gumpish quality to it, don’t be surprised as it’s also written by the Forrest Gump screenwriter, Eric Roth. They did well in setting the story in New Orleans, an old city that has a magical air that has changed after Katrina. The city itself is a good example of what we think is the film’s main theme that nothing lasts forever and the only thing constant in life is change whether we like it or not. This is illustrated in that montage of incidents that’s like a series of ripples leading to the accident that crushed Daisy’s leg.

An awesome thing in the movie is the special make up used on both Brad and Cate to make them age, particularly when Benjamin is still very young, with a boy’s body but with a large head that has Brad’s face. The makeup looks so real! Also a remarkable achievement is the use of computer technology to make them look so young in the scenes where they’re supposed to be in their teens or early 20s, erasing all lines and imperfections on their faces. Brad looks like his first screen appearance in “Thelma & Louise”.

Acting-wise, though, it’s Cate’s role as Daisy that is more demanding. As Benjamin, nothing much is required from Brad except to look cool, gentle, tolerant and radiant. Daisy is much more volatile and vibrant and Cate gives an utterly believable spirited performance even in the scenes where she dances ballet (the “Carousel” sequence is superb) and in the scenes where she sulks after her injury. The final scenes showing Daisy looking older and older while taking care of Benjamin who gets younger and younger, that deliberately avoid mawkish sentimentality, also belong to Cate.

Honestly, though, although they’re both individually good, there’s not really much passionate chemistry between Brad and Cate on screen. Giving great support is Taraji Henson as the warmhearted Queenie, who’s actually the most lovable character in the movie. The final showing the waters of Katrina as it floods the room where the old clock has been stored is quite inspired, also the appearance of a hummingbird in the most unlikely places to symbolize hope, something like the swirling lead in “Forrest Gump”. The splendid cinematography by Claudio Miranda , the lavish production design, plus the magnificent score of Alexandre Desplat all deserve special mention. Benjamin’s journey from old age to infancy is movie magic at its best and we’d want to have a second viewing.