Curiously uninvolving and rather an odd amalgamation of Forrest Gump met with slices of Magnolia's pretenses.

Rating: 5/10 (25 May 2010)

Poor Jason Flemyng, who plays the father of the titular character. I discovered somewhere some years ago that he turned up on set during the shooting of 2000's Snatch. claiming to be looking for role behind the camera. Truthfully, he was there so that he could get a glimpse of mega-star Brad Pitt. He ended up being cast as Pitt's on-screen best friend, most probably after a bit of pleading with the director when he realised this'd probably only ever be the one chance he'd get at being on screen with the star Pitt ever again. Now he IS on screen with him again, but chances are he'll have wished it only ever stayed at just the one time after he sees this mess. There'll be few films as broad in scope and journeying but as coldly uninvolving as David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; a film that begins with a relatively hokey short story about one thing or another before branching out into a somewhat longer, more overplayed hokey story about one other thing or another.
The cold, distant tone is set early on when an elderly woman named Daisy lies on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital, the wind and rain swirling all around her outside as Hurricane Katrina draws closer, and tells a story from decades ago involving a blind clockmaker. Daisy's daughter Caroline sits beside her, soon to be in possession of rather a large book in which thoughts and memories have been captured. But first, a short tidbit: the said clockmaker unveiled, at a major train station, a grandeur new clock he'd made; one which ticks backwards so as to pay tribute to his dead son and those whom fell in World War One, He was an individual whom partook in some eccentric deeds such as these before ending his own life in that typical manner these 'old tales' usually amble toward; in that he made a point about something dear to him and (cue falsely dramatic voice-over) "was never to be seen again". One wonders, after all this, how long the officials would've taken in replacing the clock with a proper working one which ticks in a forward motion so as not to confuse travelers. Is the opening story supposed to highlight how certain individuals cope with the deaths of people? Is the storm brewing outside representative of the underlying quote the film carries in that "you can't stop what's coming?" or "you never know what's coming"? Would the film be any different if at all the quirk in the premise were to be removed and Button was a normal guy with a normal ageing process born around about ten years prior to what he was? Maybe, probably and probably not at all.
From here, we have the life of a certain Benjamin Button (Pitt) narrated to us by Daisy's daughter Caroline by way of Button's journal of ninety odd years, further still filtered by way of Daisy's own recollections and Benjamin's own presence in these various eras. The film is of the sort that you might stumble across in years to come whilst it's playing on television, the kind that usually sees people sit there and tune in about half way through by way of channel hopping because they're relatively familiar with the premise and like a good sporadic, life affirming film. You know the types, those that watch films but only pretend to actually like cinema. Benjamin is born in 1918 as The Great War comes to an end; deemed a monster by his father and after his mother dies during the birth, he's ditched on the doorstep of Queenie's (Henson) old persons home a wrinkled and ugly baby before growing up into an elderly man, despite only being alive for fifteen or so years. You see, Button ages backwards. He begins in old age and then ends up as an infant.
The film preens and provides a deceptive sense of both realism and heart to it as it progresses through the decades and does its best to keep everything grounded, but Button remains in the public eye rather than in some kind of lab having tests done on him. Despite the majestic, high-brow concept; Button's life is turgid and plodding. He's boozing; sleeping with a woman for the first time; getting a job; falling in love at first sight; fighting in World War Two, suspiciously, with the neutral Irish; having an affair with a female swimmer; then the child crush has another man; then she doesn't; then something else happens – so what? None of it makes the slightest bit of difference to any sort of narrative or progressive character study. One of the film's more cringe-inducing scenes sees an elderly lady speak directly into the camera: "We're meant to loose the one's we love, it shows how much we love them" she says, resulting in the flashing green bulb in the corner of the screen going into overtime when those that aren't paying attention need a generalisation of the crux of the thing brought to their attention.
I read the film was based on a short story; one that no doubt maintained Button's gimmick in a sizable manner instead of blowing it all out of proportion like here, in which it drastically shows. The film is a flimsy chain of events, events barely connected to one another as it chugs on through the twentieth century beginning the night The First World War ended and ending somewhere in the 1990s. Nothing's really linked to anything else, there's a love story thrown in and it becomes apparent that Daisy is Benjamin's wife but that's about it – everything else is punctuated foreplay that might lead onto something else but almost always ends up kicking on and into another random chapter in this guy's life. The case of Benjamin Button is indeed curious, the story of the man is dull and consistently flounders.