The Curious Case of Benjamin Button provided a unique performance from Brad Pitt

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2008)

While my friend wanted to watch this movie because he's a big fan of Brad Pitt, I was simply more interested in the premise and the fact it was shot in my neighboring city of New Orleans whose scenery is breathtaking here (the fact that present scenes are set during Hurricane Katrina was also a fine dramatic touch). Pitt is quite touching as a man aging backwards in time and I loved the romantic scenes with both Tilda Swinton as the middle-aged wife of a spy and Cate Blanchett as his childhood friend Daisy especially her dancing scenes. Those scenes on the tug boat with that tattoo captain were also good especially the wartime sequences. If there's one quibble, it's that I didn't see enough of Queenie's daughter to really discern how she got along with either her mother or her brother Ben. Otherwise, this was a fine piece of work from director David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth who mined similar adapted territory when he previously worked on Forest Gump.