David Fincher, the director of such dark and disturbing fare as Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac has taken an unexpected and beautifully structured turn in his new film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. By now, most are aware of the plot and special effects miracles that power much of this fantastic tale, but they may not be ready for a film of such tender feelings and bittersweet meetings and partings. When a New Orleans mother dies in childbirth, her husband, recoiling at their newborn, takes the infant to an old folks home where the gentle young matron raises him. The child has been born as wizened old man and as the years go by, he becomes younger. Since he is in a place where mortality is omnipresent, he learns the value of love and loss. Eventually he goes to sea, stays in Russia where he has an impassioned affair with an English diplomat's wife, fights in World War II, and returns to New Orleans, a strapping milddeaged Brad Pitt. It is here in the middle of the film that he and his childhood friend Daisy reunite and eventually fulfill the love they have kept suppressed over the years. Daisy, the least developed of the film's characters, is played by Kate Blanchett, who somehow seems too alive, too "emotive" for this dreamlike film. Nevertheless, Pitt, now close to his own age of 44, gives these scenes a pathos rarely seen in his previous films. There is none of the snarkiness or cool detachment of films like Fight Club. Instead, there is a constant longing and sadness in those big blue eyes.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is filmed in beautiful shades of sepia, blue-gray, and occasionally bursts of old style movie color. Only rarely does Fincher allow symbolism to get in the way of the pervading melancholy that lifts this film from the ordinary picaresque adventure. Unlike Forrest Gump, written by the same screenwriter, this film does not push comedy and gushy sentimentality. Instead, like Pitt's measured and subtle performance, Benjamin Button maintains a balance of masterful storytelling with an ambience of sadness for people and places loved and lost, such as old New Orleans. How interesting it must have been for Pitt to watch his life in reverse at the very time that his golden boy image is giving way to a maturing adult.
George Awsumb, rapidly approaching retirement but still full of opinions, rational or otherwise, blogs about current events, trends, films, pop culture and whatever else bugs him.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
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