Should Have Been an Amazing Story but Wasn't

Rating: 6/10 (25 December 2008)

Horrifying self-realization: Heinlein help me, I went to see a Major Motion Picture Event and a Happy Madison Production (Bedtime Stories) on the same day, and I'm giving them both the same rating (6).
This is the MMPE. You can tell because it's nearly 3 hours long, is based on Akshwul Litrachoor (F. Scott Fitzgerald's novella), and stars someone (Mr. Pitt) who is among the dozen people known only by 1st name at supermarket checkout counters everywhere. It's ostensibly about a man who, for no explicable reason, grows older mentally and experientially at the same pace as everyone else while growing younger (from about 70ish) physically. The amazing thing about this is that it's so unamazing. Pitt plays his role in the lowest of keys. For such an unusual person, Benjamin leads a pretty dull and ordinary life. The center of that life, and of the film, is when his middle age overlaps with that of Daisy (Cate Blanchett), and they have upwards of a decade of happiness living together before fate draws them apart again. Huge props to the film for originality and creating a tremendous sense of time and place from 1919 to 2005, but really, nothing in it reached right out and grabbed me. This has not stopped it from being touted for multiple Oscars, so I'm probably in the minority here, but I can't in good conscience tell you "Ya gotta go see it!".