Intriguing and original idea but somewhat overlong

Rating: 8/10 (13 September 2013)

This is one film I wanted to see at the cinema when it came out but didn't get around to although my former friend's niece saw it and probably enjoyed it. I eventually added it to my LoveFilm rental list and got sent it for free last year in the run-up to Christmas because LoveFilm were generous to send me a free rental during that time.
Moving on to the film itself, I found the story unusual and engaging for the most part but it was somewhat overlong and it had an element from one of my least favourite film genres (war movies) but I liked the film tying in with major events such as Armistice Day and Hurricane Katrina, both of which coincided with Benjamin's birth and Daisy's death respectively. It was interesting to have the story span across several decades and I liked the fact that the titular character was born on 11th November 1918 (the day World War I ended) since it is also my Nan's birthday, although she was born in 1937. I found parts of the story a tad hard to follow so I ended up reading the synopsis on Wikipedia to help me. The historic costumes were true to their eras up to Benjamin's 'old-on-the-insude-youthful- on-the-outside' stage sometime in the 1990s, which I found surprising, and I liked the cast since Brad Pitt is one of my favourite actors - the only other films of his I've seen are 'Ocean's Eleven (which was forgettable and harder to follow than this one despite its well- known cast)' and 'Happy Feet Two (a decent follow-up to the first).' It also made sense that Benjamin and Daisy were portrayed by different actors to show their varying ages throughout the film such as Pitt and Cate Blanchett playing them in middle age and Elle Fanning (Dakota Fanning's younger sister, both of whom voiced the sisters in 'My Neighbour Totoro') playing Daisy aged about seven, but the actors playing the 'old-on-the- inside-youthful-on-the-outside' Benjamin are lesser known. There are some heart-wrenching moments such as Queenie the nursing home worker having died during Benjamin and Daisy's reunion sailing trip, her funeral and Benjamin dying on screen towards the end, which was implied by his eyes closing in a similar fashion to Marley closing his eyes whilst being put down towards the end of 'Marley and Me.' I nearly bawled my eyes out when Benjamin died because it reminded me of the rarity of babies dying.
All in all this film had an intriguing and more original idea than the likes of 'Big' and both versions of 'Freaky Friday' (the 1976 and 2003 versions) albeit its length, but I suppose it had to be over two and a half hours long to depict the various time periods. 8/10.