An interesting but flawed film

Rating: 7/10 (20 December 2009)

This was the first film I saw in 2008 which would then go on to be nominated for Best Picture and overall in the scale of things I would rate it fourth of the films. 1st would be Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, 2nd would be Stephen Daldry's The Reader, 3rd would be Ron Howards' Frost Nixon and now fourth is David Fincher's 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.' To describe the plot in one sentence it is about a character called Benjamin Button who is born old and grows younger. The film is about his life including some of the people he meets and the love he shares for a character named Daisy. The best performance is by Brad Pitt who gives an emotionally restraint performance throughout the whole film which is quietly beautiful. Taraji P. Henson is also wonderful as Queenie who is warm and lovable. There are elements of the story that are interesting and the make-up and visual-effects are absolutely amazing. There are also memorable and witty side-gags like a character that claims to have been struck by lightening seven times though the gag overstays its welcome. There is many other things to admire but there are some things that drag the film down. The first and foremost problem is Eric Roth screenplay. I can understand that he had to work with a short story about three pages long which had no characters except Benjamin. But I felt that he tried to repeat Forrest Gump's success (something he too wrote the screenplay for) by using the same storytelling techniques which feel more like a gimmick here and unnecessary. Some of the dialogue is also very hockey and cringe-worthy. Another problem is the usually wonderful Cate Blanchett whose performance I found to be rather over-the-top and tedious. There is also a large section of the story featuring a character played by Tilda Swinton which goes absolutely nowhere and contributed to the problem that the film was far too long. Problems aside it was still a worthy piece of entertainment but I would have preferred to see 'The Dark Knight' and 'Revolutionary Road' get nominated for best picture over this and 'Milk.'