A delightful treat

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2009)

It certainly is a curious case. David Fincher, known for putting killers and nihilistic terrorists centre-stage, brings us an Oscar-baiting, love epic. Centring on Benjamin Button, a lovable character who finds himself born into a body that ages backwards, the film travels the globe, spans decades and takes into a wide range of characters and emotions as it explores exactly what it is to be human.
Brad Pitt, well-hidden CG and top-class prosthetics combine to form Button, a man always struggling to fit in. Not much is asked of Pitt's acting ability. All he really needs to do is maintain an air of loneliness and look solemnly into the middle distance from time to time. It is his interactions, even the most minor ones, which really do the work, from his love for Cate Blanchett's Daisy, to his relationships with the crew of the tugboat 'Chelsea' on which he works and his feelings for his family, both adopted and biological. It is these small relations that do the real work, connecting with the audience and maintaining a pull on their emotions at all times.
These background characters, each intended to be quirky and memorable, too often slip into cliché. For every irreverent old man at the retirement home, there is an Irish sailor straight out the book of Irish sailors. Enjoyable characters yes, but an extra dimension to their personality is expected.
The film immerses itself in quirky detail, which despite being largely unnecessary to the plot, are rarely a distraction. In one scene, Fincher creates a whirling ode to chaos theory, climaxing in a major plot event. Most films would simply show the event itself, after all, that is all that's integral to the plot, but seeing the way that tiny occurrences come together to create a significant moment makes it feel neither forced nor unimportant, despite its irrelevance.
But amongst these asides and whimsical distractions, what really is the main point of this film? It is a billed as a film about life, in its entirety, with no emotion or experience left unchecked. The truth is, it is really about old age, or at least the facade of old age. It concerns itself far more regularly with how Button deals with being a young person in an old body than the other way around. Button's later life is shown mostly in montages, and his feelings about being old but appearing young are never really addressed properly.
The centrepiece of the plot, although not the entirety of it, concerns itself with the love between Daisy and Benjamin, but there is too much going on to call it a love story. It is designed to portray human emotion on a grand scale, which sometimes tends towards the pretentious, but more often than not leaves a sincere mark on the audience.
Despite the length it is never tedious, and the bevy of interesting characters makes up for the films faults. Curious Case will delight and entertain audiences more for the intriguing and memorable asides than for the core of the film, but it is nevertheless a treat.