The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Save Yourself Three Hours and Just Don’t Bother

Dialogue

The dialogue isn’t great at all. None of the conversations do what they’re supposed to. There are a few scenes near the beginning that are a real let down. They set the tone for the rest of the film: 

Here’s a tip for the director, if you name your film something as stupid as ‘The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button’ don’t be tactless enough to put the dialogue,

‘Are you afraid?’

‘I’m curious.’ in the opening scene. Especially not after you’ve already fashioned the Paramount logo out of CGI buttons in the opening titles, how tacky do you want your film to be? Also, if you’re  going to call a character Mr Gateau without even a hint of irony as to how stupid that name is, then don’t for the love of god have the same character directly after introducing him, point out that his name means Mr Cake. Not only is it incredibly patronising to the audience but why labour a point that would only make the film better if it went over somebodies head? Why he’s called Mr Cake is beyond me. He’s isn’t even a baker. He makes clocks!

The only dialogue that truly spoke to me was when Mr Cake, as he starts to be called, as if they just decided against Gateau and didn’t bother revising the script, says:

‘I’m sorry if I have offended you with my clock.’ Only I heard instead of Mr Cake, the director saying this:

‘I’m sorry I have offended you with my COCK when I vigorously slapped it across your face by making this movie.’ That’s what I heard anyway.

Plot

The plot is ridiculous. There’s got to be a reason to suspend your disbelief for a story such as this. When you’re asked to believe that Benjamin Button was born an old man and gradually grows backwards until he dies a baby, there has to be a pretty big emotional pay off for doing so. It comes far too late in Benjamin Button. There are parts in the movie that it doesn’t seem to make the slightest bit of difference Button is an old man, he could be a regular boy and the story would be the same. I saw ‘Jack’ that managed the formula and it was a kid’s film. It was heart warming, his growth disorder made for both comedy and drama. Benjamin Button doesn’t deliver in the same way at all.

Plot-wise, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ as far as I can see, is a joke on its audience. It must have started as a joke for the producer’s pitching this idea that drastically backfired because they’ve got a film out of it. The joke’s now rolled over onto us. They do their utmost to patronise their audience but at the same time want us to suspend a lot of disbelief for this pseudo magical realism junk and expect us to have Orpheus-like patience following blindly this stupid, directionless plot. It seems this movie was written for (and also possibly written by) the stupid or the stupidly pretentious. The movie takes a stab at covering many thoughtful and emotionally provocative themes but nothing really resonates and what you’re left with is an extravagantly expensive but half baked movie. Sorry, I don’t mean to labour a point but how the hell can bones grow backwards?

Characters

What the hell does a pygmy have to do with anything first of all? He just pops up in the middle of New Orleans and just becomes best friends with Benjamin out of nowhere. There could have made for a poignant, morality message in his one scene with Benjamin. But I don’t know whether we are supposed to sympathise with him because he is an African and out of place in an early 20th century America, or if he feels displaced for being a pygmy circus dwarf. With only five minutes on screen it’s just another half-hearted idea that ends in failure. We then have Brad, the narrator tell us that this unimportant five minute scene, ‘had been the best day of my life.’ Sorry Brad, we need to see it rather than just take your word for it. 

Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button did well. He was hardly Tom Hanks in ‘Forest Gump’ but a good narrator nonetheless. If he narrated the whole thing instead of leaving some parts for the very old and very grating voiced Daisy, the film would have been better. He was good enough on screen but I have to wonder why they got him to do the film or why he agreed. Brad Pitt is a sex symbol, why would you waste all that money casting him to play an old man? He plays his actual age for less than an hour.

Queenie, Benjamin’s adopted mother, is supposed to be an equality statement, I presume. She is the black housemaid who shows humility to this white, unwanted, prune baby by taking him into her home and raising him as her own. This is undermined though by her being a typical Mammy archetype; think Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’ and you’re spot on! She’s a stereotypical old fashioned portrayal of a black woman. Like every point this movie tries to make it just falls flat on its face. They picked an attractive actress, who plays the motherly type well, but just didn’t give her enough to work with script wise.

Cate Blanchett doesn’t do to bad at all as the love interest Daisy. But to say it’s so important to the storyline, the continuity of Daisy’s age transitions are laughable. She goes from a girl of about twelve, to Cate Blanchett in one scene and supposedly three years. There’s a part where Cate blatantly dubs over the child actress, who must have screwed her lines up. It really ticked me off that the director thought he could get the obvious mid-sentence voice change past us.

Diagonsis

One of the most painful things about reviewing this film was I had to sit all the way through it. 2hrs 43mins drags when you’re not having fun. The one aspect of the film that got anywhere near to drawing me in was the soundtrack by Alexandre Desplat. He has worked on some fantastic films recently and delivers an excellent soundtrack in ‘Benjamin Button.’ It made even the most half-arsed dialogue effective. I did find myself caught up in the moment once or twice with the epic strings and piano, beautifully entwined in the background. It’s odd; Benjamin Button seems to have the right components for a good film but has just gone wrong somewhere. Its like a jigsaw puzzle that someone’s gotten frustrated with and has hammered a few pieces into the wrong places so it just doesn’t fit together now. The ending was surpisingly touching and incredibly well acted. Unfortunately they had made far too many mistakes by then for it to be a good movie. I think its really not worth it if you have to wait two hours for a film to get good.