The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

My regular readers have guessed by now that soundtracks are important to me. So far, composer Alexandre Desplat has received for this movie 1 runner-up award (the movie's only LA Film Critics' mention) and nominations by the Golden Globes and Critics' Circle. He hasn't won an Oscar yet, but was nominated for The Queen (2006), and has been recognized by the Golden Globes before, winning for The Painted Veil (2006), and nominated for Syriana (2005) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003). When the Oscar nominations are announced I try to make a point of listening to all the nominated soundtracks before the awards. To hear the score yourself, open this link (in another window if you'd like to listen while reading, as I am listening while writing--you will need to manually advance to the next track each time). 

I tried to convince Amy to make time on her winter break to see this movie with me, but she was dissuaded by David Edelstein on NPR, who said that he only liked the first hour and a half (a link to his Fresh Air segment is also in the following post). I agree with Edelstein that Button was too long by over a half hour, but Jack & I still enjoyed this fairy tale loosely based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about a man who ages in reverse. In fact, we both think Jack might have stayed awake for all 2 hours and 48 minutes! 

You can read the story, or the Wikipedia synopsis, and it won't really spoil the movie for you, as very few details were kept. The dates are different (Benjamin is born in 1860, not 1918), the location is Baltimore, even the family business is different, and other details don't match but I won't give them away. 

David Fincher (Se7en (1995), Panic Room (2002), Zodiac (2007)) directs. Screenwriter Eric Roth is familiar with blending fiction and history, having won an Oscar for writing Forrest Gump in 1994 (as well as nominations for The Insider (1999) and Munich (2005)) and co-wrote the movie's story with Robin Swicord. The movie opens on Daisy (Cate Blanchett), covered in prosthetic wrinkles, dying in a New Orleans hospital bed days before Katrina's landfall and murmuring unintelligibly--I wished for closed captions then and in a few other places. Her daughter finds a book and reads to her. It flashes back to just before Benjamin's (Brad Pitt--if you have been living in a cave you might need me to tell you that) birth and the narrative flip-flops between Daisy's and Benjamin's points of view, travelling all over the world but often returning to lush New Orleans, just as Forrest kept returning to Alabama (Gump was actually shot mostly in the Carolinas, the bench was in Savannah, and now it is not). 

I did not recognize little Elle Fanning as the 7 year-old Daisy with her hair dyed red, but she does a good job as always (Babel and Deja Vu, both 2006). Little Old Benjamin is played by a number of actors and computer effects (but nothing, so far, beats the animatronic baby in Children of Men (2006)). Tilda Swinton (Oscar winner for her jittery part in Michael Clayton (2007), scary in the first Narnia movie (2005), awesome in indies The Deep End (2001) and Thumbsucker (2005)) was wonderful as Elizabeth Abbott, and she and Taraji P. Henson (scenery-chewing in both Hustle & Flow (2005) and Talk to Me (2007)) as Queenie deserve every nomination. Yes, it may drag now and then, or hit you over the head with its metaphors about aging (Jack noticed there was a clock in nearly every transition), but see it for the acting, the music, and the images.