Benjamin Button’s a long strange trip

In theaters Friday: Defiance, Hotel for Dogs, Notorious, Paul Blart: Mall Cop

New on DVD & Blu-Ray: Appaloosa, Mirrors, My Best Friend’s Girl, Swing Vote

Much has been made about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button being curiously similar to screenwriter Eric Roth’s biggest hit, Forrest Gump. Sure, each film’s lead is an unusual man with unusual circumstances who meets the love of his life as a child before going off on a series of adventures and returning when his mother passes away. But this case is a far bleaker and more poetic affair.

Brad Pitt stars as Benjamin, a New Orleans man who is born old in 1918 but begins growing up and young at the same time. After his mother dies in childbirth, his father abandons the wrinkled Benjamin on the doorstep of an old folks home. There, he is raised by Queenie, the black owner and operator of the home. As the residents grow old and die, Benjamin looks younger and healthier every day, moving from his wheel chair, to a walker, to a cane. Throughout, the special and visual effects used to turn Pitt into a little old man are astounding. At the home he meets Daisy, a young girl visiting her ill grandmother. Though they look a lifetime apart in age, they take a liking to each other, and the course of their relationship forms the backbone of the rest of the film.

And what a breathtaking film to behold. Director David Fincher and his longtime cinematographer Claudio Miranda take us on Benjamin’s journey from the foggy lanes of his tugboat days, winter snowfalls in Russia, late nights in Manhattan, WWII in the Pacific, the cluttered streets of Paris, the serene Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain, and the rural glory of the scattered corners of Asia. If you ever doubted the beauty of Louisiana or that New Orleans could look regal again after Katrina’s destruction, watch this movie.

Benjamin’s journey is the epic struggle of finding himself and his place in the world, and to one day get back to Daisy, who grows into a world-renowned dancer played by Cate Blanchett. Hats off to Pitt and Blanchett for knockout performances. Both imbue their characters with a sweet longing and deep desire for their fleeting moments together to last, for time to stand still. It’s the same feeling most of us get when we are truly happy and for about 20 minutes in the center of the picture—when Pitt looks like he does now in the tabloids, and Blanchett is radiant—Fincher’s film captures this with zeal. Of course, no one can make time stand still, so they must make the best of the days they have, and that becomes Button’s strongest refrain. Bookended by acts of defiant hope and sadness, the middle section of the film set during the 1960s really soars. Pitt and Blanchett spend rich, sunset days sailing to the Florida Keys and playfully make a home together in New Orleans to the rush of The Beatles screaming “Twist and Shout.”

But as Pitt and Blanchett chronologically diverge once again, tension builds, and the mystical, backwards drama of Act 1 returns while the blossom of their relationship proves as transient to the audience as it is to the characters. You want them to be happy together. You want it to last. And that is the success of the film.

Benjamin Button will get lots of attention this awards season, and rightly so. But I would not be surprised if it didn’t win much. It is a brave film and epic in scope, but it is far from perfect. At nearly three hours long, I felt like I had aged a good bit watching it. Fincher should have cut 20 minutes, including all of an unnecessary subplot with Tilda Swinton. The screenplay should been more balanced between Pitt’s ages. Too much time is spent on him as an “old” kid, while his “teen” years at the end are glossed over in montage. How a teenager with the mind of a 65-year-old would act is more interesting than how an 80-year-old with a child’s brain behaves, but maybe that’s just me. In general, I would have liked to see Button more proactive. I wanted to see more fire in him. Pitt plays Benjamin passive for the most part, and does that well. But passive works best for little indie dramas. Epic stories need epic heroes. Benjamin Button is just a man in love who can’t stop watching the clock.