Review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Rating: Null/10 (31 July 2011)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a coming of age story about a boy who is born with a rare disease that causes him to age in reverse. The story takes place in Louisiana during hurricane Katrina, Daisy (Cate Blanchett) is on her deathbed and asks her daughter Caroline to read a Benjamin's diary (Brad Pitt). The diary tells the story of Benjamin's life, how he was born and left at a nursing home by his father and a woman named Queenie, played by Taraji P. Henson finds him and raises him as her own. As a child Benjamin looks like he is one of the residents at the nursing hone, even though in reality he has only been alive a short time. While at growing up at the nursing home Benjamin meets Daisy and he instantly falls in love with her. Due to his much older appearance, nothing can be done but he keeps in touch with Daisy for years after he leaves home. They do finally come together again when Benjamin looks much younger in appearance and when Daisy. They have a daughter named Caroline, but due to complications with Benjamin's condition he decides to leave Daisy to raise their daughter alone. In the end Daisy takes care of Benjamin until the end of his life.
The theme of this movie is that true love will withstand anything including time. Benjamin loved Daisy from the moment he saw her. While reading his diary, Caroline says to her mother "Do you realize that this man Benjamin loved you from the moment he saw you?" The story is told with many montages showing the different phases of Daisy's and Benjamin's lives, they both took very different paths and I believe it was Benjamin's love for Daisy that allowed him to let her live her life until the timing was right. In addition to the montages the director made sure that we saw all the characters as equal and in an indirect-subjective cinematic viewpoint. You feel close to the action but not as though why is happening in the film is happening you.
This film reminded me of another movie I love, The Time Travelers Wife, in it lovers share the same obstacle as Benjamin and Daisy; time. The main character in The Time Traveler's Wife has a disorder that forces him to travel through time without notice, which makes maintaining a relationship with the love of his life difficult to say the least. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, is a great movie the actors were great, and even though there is a lot of make up used due to the wide span of time captured in the film all of the actors and actresses showed through in there performances, I would imagine that it would be difficult to convincingly act with so much costume make up on. In the beginning I had a hard time believing that Brad Pitt player the "young" Benjamin.