should be retitled: The Tedious Case of Benjamin Button

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2009)

After many months of intending to go see this film, but never really finding a convenient time, I finally got around to seeing it and was crushingly, woefully, disappointed. In fact, I haven't felt so let down by the promise of a film since the advent of the Star Wars prequels (well, maybe Indy IV). It's really a bit of a mess of a film, a curate's egg really that has good bits in it, but is ultimately too long, poorly structured and badly paced. I couldn't help but think it should be renamed "The Tedious Case of Benjamin Button", as regrettably it commits what to me is the cardinal sin for a film, that for all its interesting touches, it's ultimately boring and, to be honest, not as original or intelligent as it thinks it is.
The plot, for those who don't know, is a simple one. We follow the eponymous Benjamin (Brad Pitt), a man who is born as an old man and slowly ages in reverse, experiencing the 20th Century through his eyes, with the focus being on his inevitably doomed love affair with Cate Blanchett's Daisy, the normal ageing love of his life.
The problem with this, on paper promising, idea is that it is basically squandered. The backwards ageing provides only a few moments of poignancy, the rest of the time it is either played for laughs or ignored altogether in favour of what is to be honest a straightforward linear narrative about life and love. The main problem is that conveying the 20th century through the eyes of one man and the girl he loves has been done before, and better, with "Forrest Gump", and this film lacks the wit, charm, or pace of Zemeckis' film.
There are some good things, the acting is on the whole excellent, especially from Pitt who is startlingly convincing as the curiously afflicted Benjamin, and Blanchett as his soul mate the beautiful Daisy. Plaudits also should go to the always excellent Tilda Swinton, as the repressed wife of an English diplomat who Benjamin falls for while working on a fishing boat in Russia.
Visually the film is also stunning, though sometimes the aesthetic is too extreme. The cold of Russia and the bleak rain splattered streets of New York are presented well, but the scenes of Button's home in New Orleans where he grows up are shot in such a mellow pallet of yellows, and have such a cheesy family atmosphere, you almost expects someone to come in with a packet of Werther's Originals to hand round.
The scenes that are of interest are often peculiar vignettes detaching from the story, and while fascinating, such as the story of the blind clockmaker making a clock that only goes backwards following his sons death, or the sequence showing the many small cause and effect chains which lead to a major accident, the use of a hummingbird as a psycho-pomp, ultimately come across as just cynical attempts to make the film appear deeper than it actually is, recalling the similar opening of "Magnolia", but without the intelligent relevance.
The only truly outstanding scene is one in which the fishing boat on which Button works is attacked by a German U-Boat in WW2, and is forced to fight back. But even that moment of action underpins the meandering slowness of the rest of the film. Bluntly put, the film is way too long, and feels it. Around the 2 hour mark, you suddenly become very aware that there is much more left and that it could be done much quicker.
Another problem is with the films structure, particularly the framing device which has an elderly, dying Blanchett getting her daughter to read Benjamin's Diary, which then becomes his narration. It seems clumsy and unnecessary, especially as any time we are getting drawn in by Benjamin, we get dragged out into a series of repetitive mother/daughter conversations between the two. Also, the main emotional reveal of these scenes is massively underplayed and the daughter is given so little characterisation, it is almost impossible to feel empathy, or even care that her mother is dying, when the relationship could be much more poignant.
Blanchett as an old woman is also incredibly irritating, her reminiscences of lost love and her life when she was younger at best schmaltzy and at worst sanctimonious, comparable to the old woman in Titanic in both expositionary function, and irritating personality. This isn't her fault though as much as bad writing, but she does typify the problem. Only Pitt and Swinton are given juicy parts, Blanchett is essentially just there to look gorgeous (which of course she does) whereas a massive cast of supporting characters barely break into two dimensions (least of all the hard-drinking Irish captain he goes to work for- stereotypes ahoy!).
Ultimately, the central love story is sweet, but padded far too much, while an interesting premise is largely ignored or unexplored, as if it was only there for occasional comic relief. Its a frustrating, badly structured film that away from the media circus, isn't really anything special. Its worth watching if its on TV sometime, but if you go out of your way to see it, you'll be quite disappointed. It does have its moments, but it was vastly overrated on its release.