Unbearable nostalgia

Rating: 9/10 (9 February 2017)

Benjamin Button's reverse ageing is mainly an excuse to ponder ageing and death with a little extra distance.
The movie takes place from 1918 to 2003. The actors are shown at all ages in between. I could not for the life of me figure out when they used different actors when makeup, and when CGI magic. In the early part of the movie, Brad Pitt seems to be only about four feet tall and hunched. I don't know how they did it.
The ageing/deageing effects were very subtle and gradual. I could not notice them except by recalling previous reels.
They kept de-aging Pitt through his teens, as a child and as a baby. It was like an electric shock to see Pitt, again, as dazzling as he once was in Thelma and Louise all through some sort of movie magic. He not only deages, he becomes god-like handsome shocking everyone used to his mousey self.
Benjamin Button's accent changes quite dramatically over the movie. I have to presume this was deliberate. He was picking up the accent of whomever he had been hanging out with.
The movie must have been very expensive, since there were sets and cars of every year in the range.
The main action takes place in a poorly lit, sombre home for the dying. There are many funerals and catastrophes. I felt unbearable heartache and nostalgia.