I have been working on my review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for quite some time now. For those of you that read this site regularly you already know how much I loved it, but I still want to write a formal review to have on record, but it has been an interesting journey. However, a couple of reviews have popped up online confirming what I already assumed. There is a disconnect with this film that will either have you falling into one of two categories, those that love it and those that don’t. I see very little room for hatred, and expect a wealth of middle-of-the-road opinions.
The two reviews I speak of come from Roger Ebert and Devin Faraci at CHUD, both of which come to a similar decision, saying the film is well made, but misses the mark. Ebert gets caught up in the aging process simply saying, “Life doesn’t work this way. We are an observer of our passage, and so are others.” While Devin boils it down saying:
The life of young Benjamin is not that different from the life of any child afflicted with some kind of terrible physical ailment. He wasn’t born with the mind of an old man, so he’s just a kid in a very frail, very weak body. Unlike most children who are confined to wheelchairs, Benjamin gets better as his body gets younger, but so what? Beyond the desire to push the envelope technically I failed to see what the point was of Benjamin aging backwards.
As for Roger’s comments I wish he would read Devin’s review as I whole-heartedly believe he is absolutely correct in his assertion. However, I think both reviewers took the aging gimmick (that’s really what it is) and placed WAY too much emphasis on it. Benjamin’s aging process simply offers another way of looking at someone’s life;
The way I read it, neither Roger or Devin were able to do that. Ebert goes as far as saying:
The movie’s premise devalues any relationship, makes futile any friendship or romance, and spits, not into the face of destiny, but backward into the maw of time. It even undermines the charm of compound interest. In the film, Benjamin (Brad Pitt) as an older man is enchanted by a younger girl (Cate Blanchett). Later in the film, when he is younger and she is older, they make love. This is presumably meant to be the emotional high point. I shuddered. No! No! What are they thinking during sex? What fantasies apply? Does he remember her as a girl? Does she picture the old man she loved?
Interesting eh? Devin says Benjamin’s life is no different than any child growing up with a physical ailment and Ebert says growing up in such a way “makes futile any friendship or romance.”
Roger seems to have gotten caught up in physical appearances, but forgets when Daisy (Blanchett) and Benjamin get together they are meeting in the middle. Both of them look similar in age and I believe are the exact same age (or only a year or two off). When Roger asks, “Does he remember her as a girl? Does she picture the old man she loved?” he forgets when she was a girl he was just a boy, he just
Ebert is stuck on Benjamin’s “curious” aging process, but seems to overlook the fact that (as Devin says) “[Benjamin’s] backwards chronology is a metaphor for our own lifespans, that the difference between a baby and a doddering senile old man is simply 80 years.” Devin looks at that fact and asks “Why bother?” Ebert looks at the film and asks, “How could we perform that act of love if we were aging in opposite directions?” Unfortunately Benjamin’s physical body is aging in an opposite direction, but not what makes Benjamin a human. Not the part of Benjamin that loves.
This is the part of the story I connected to. As a result of Benjamin’s “affliction” he ended up doing things many of us don’t get to experience because we find ourselves following traditional lifestyles and expectations. For Benjamin there are no expectations because he is looked at as being different even though he is just like everyone else, something that complicates matters as much as it makes them interesting… for me at least.
I can understand Devin’s review and how he just didn’t connect to Benjamin’s story in the way I did. He asks, “Why bother?” and that explained it all to me. However, Roger’s disconnect is a lot different even though they both take issue with the same thing.
Ebert was not able to look past Benjamin’s physical aging process and I think his opinion is just as important as Devin’s, if not more. Roger looked at Benjamin simply as a metaphor and not as a man. He dug into the story and let his brain turn as opposed to letting the story turn his brain for him. I am not sure if it is a stubborn reaction or something else, but I would love to ask Roger how he would react if such a case as Benjamin’s actually happened. Would he still be able to say, “Life doesn’t work this way,” or would the forced confrontation have him completely rethinking his opinion?
Fact is, while Benjamin Button is a fantasy film of sorts it is not presented as one. Benjamin’s reality is our own and I think anyone focusing on the aging process beyond keeping it in the back of their mind is missing out on a much deeper story. At least, that’s how I see it.
Now, hopefully I can condense all that into my official review. Then again, I feel as if one isn’t even necessary after this.
