Chances are , you already know if you ’re going to like The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button , the Brad Pitt weepie that spread tomorrow . And in a sense , the movie ’s predictability is what it ’s about . Spoilers ! ! !
Okay , not literally . Literally , Benjamin Button is about a guy who ’s comport old andages backwards , until he strive childhood and then dies . But in a larger mother wit , David Fincher ’s movie is about deja vu . It feel very much like a dozen other moving-picture show you ’ve seen before . And it seems to be say that familiarity is underrated and nostalgia is renewal , by looking at the sprightliness of someone whose past is always in front of him .
https://gizmodo.com/play-the-guess-brad-pitts-reverse-aging-game-5047467
In especial , Benjamin Button will remind you a lot of Forrest Gump , another literary adaptation by the same screenwriter , Eric Roth . It ’s find the same form of heartwarming , quirky feeling , and the booster live through a nice selection of bad diachronic moments . ( Although he does n’t meet any famous personages . ) Pretty much every situation that Benjamin Button catch himself into will feel cozily familiar , and most of the part he meets are one you ’ve see before . But because he ’s living backwards , he outlive people who seem to be his age or vernal . And the movie seems to be saying , “ Take another look at these familiar situation and archetypes , because they wo n’t last forever , and you ’ll neglect them when they ’re go . ”
Here ’s the story , in a nutshell : Benjamin Button is born quondam , and his father abandons him . He ’s deliver by Queenie , a estimable - hearted African American woman , who devotes herself to him . as luck would have it , she crop in an old - mass ’s home , where he fits right in with the cast of quirky character . ( One of these characters has a running play jest that ’s jaw - snappingly laughable . ) He fulfil a small girl , Daisy , and they become playmates . afterwards , he goes off to sea on a tugboat , and then struggle in World War II . And sleeps with Tilda Swinton . Then he comes home and courts Daisy , who ’s too interfering being a fancy dancer . They at last get together , and are rapturously happy , but Benjamin worries his impending early days will bankrupt everything . ( It does . )
There ’s also a build story , where Daisy is on her decease seam ( as Hurricane Katrina hover ) and she buzz off her daughter to say Benjamin ’s memoir to her . That stuff is like what I opine The Notebook would be like .
There ’s nothing wrong with any of it , and it ’s all quite skilfully carry through . Except that Cate Blanchett , as Daisy , and Brad Pitt , as Benjamin , have very petty chemistry , and Pitt ’s functioning in world-wide is somewhere between understated and vacant . ( I really only like Pitt when he ’s doing frenzied nutjob , to be honest . ) But apart from that job , the performances are all enceinte , and some of them are terrific . Tilda Swinton is never anything but awesome , for example .
The movie is three hours long , and there are a few sequence that feel beyond fill out . ( In one sequence , in especial , the narrator drone that if A , B , C , or D had hap other than , then E would n’t have take place . But A , B , C , and D did actually find the way they did , so E happen as well . I felt like I was being spoon - feed by an arthritic . ) To some extent , the movie ’s slowness is a function of its mission : to show us that time is slide by , that as Benjamin Button throw his years , he ’s still racing towards a tomb like the rest period of us .
That ’s in a sensory faculty what Benjamin Button is about — paradoxically , by dealing with a role who miraculously wo n’t get sure-enough , it aim to make us consider about the fact that we will . And by part aging from death , it reinforces once again that death is universal . All of those heartwarming character we touch in the course of the moving picture end up dying , and we linger over their Death . There ’s even a gratis black preacher who drops utter justly after meeting Benjamin .
I always think , when retrospect a non - genre film like Button for io9 , it ’s authoritative to focus on its genre elements and how they ’re functioning in the story . In Button , the main character ’s mutant great power functions as a metaphor for the way the past gets more and more crucial as you get older . specially with the framing chronicle , where we see the old Daisy relive her life with Benjamin on her expiry bed , the point is driven home that honey , and death , make time traveler of all of us as our future funk away .
The flick is a victory of make-up and special effects , by the path . The whole business ofmaking Brad up as an older humanity , and lay over his feature onto various other people ’s body , is weirdly convincing .
https://gizmodo.com/the-crazy-face-transplant-that-made-benjamin-button-pos-5075614
Major spoiler alert : The thing that really turned me off this flick , once and for all , is when Benjamin decides to ditch Daisy after knocking her up . At this level , they ’re both about 40 , and he ’s court her for two decades . Now that he at long last has her , he of a sudden freaks out about the fact that they ’re “ meet in the midriff ” and he ’s doomed to keep getting younger . “ I do n’t require you to have to upgrade us both , ” he separate Daisy , referring to her babe and him . But it literally makes no sense to me — why ca n’t he adhere around until the baby and he are both roughly 20 eld one-time biologically ? Or if I ’m doing my mathematics damage , at the very worst , he would come out 16 or 17 when Daisy was 18 or 19 . Again , still not seeing why Benjamin ca n’t serve raise his tike .
It feels like the movie has some kind of weird pro - deadbeat pappa agenda . Benjamin ’s own Father-God abandons him , and then afterward they meet up and gradually become friend . They bond , and we ’re think of to forgive the dad for being completely absent . And in the case of Benjamin , after he forsake Daisy and plump off to India to “ find himself , ” he egotistically comes back when his daughter is grown and he look to be a young grownup . Then he hangs around New Orleans ( Daisy ’s hometown ) and finally she ’s stuck harbour him after he ’s turned into a doddery babe . So even though he ran away , she still takes care of him in his former / young years .
It did n’t feel like much of a making love story to me , but peradventure I ’m too cynical .
I ’m afraid I did n’t care Button very much , but you may wish it just fine . It has a 76 percentage score on Rotten Tomatoes , and I ’m certain it ’ll do great at the box office . It ’s very Oscar - ish , too . I ’d say , if you liked Forrest Gump , you might wish this , although it ’s not quite as skilful .
Brad PittDavid FincherTilda Swinton
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