A faulty structure reduces this from a great movie to a very good one

Rating: 8/10 (9 January 2009)

In "Forrest Gump" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (both screenplays by Eric Roth), things HAPPEN to the protagonists; they don't so much make things happen. Gump was a fascinating simpleton whose presence often brought out the best in people. Button is a fascinating guy, too, whose presence mostly confuses and disarms people. What makes him fascinating is that he's aging in reverse . He's born old and wrinkled, although he's small enough to slip through a vaginal canal. This part of the premise is a cheat. In the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Button was born big. His poor mother would have had a few interesting stories to tell, but that's another movie in itself. Actually, this "cheat" isn't a bad thing; it makes things a little more realistic and streamlined (relatively speaking). The first hour of the film is beautiful and filled with wonder. Director David Fincher ("Zodiac", "Fight Club", "Seven") and his team of special effects artists make us believe that Button exists. Watching him interact with other characters is amazing to behold. He has Brad Pitt's face, sure, and he sounds like Brad Pitt, but it couldn't possibly be Brad Pitt because Brad Pitt isn't three feet tall, no matter how low he squats. This fact doesn't matter. The special effects erase our doubt. The movie magic never detracts from our enjoyment of watching Button as he heads out into the world and bewilders everybody he meets. Like Gump, he forms some great friendships and has two key relationships. The one he has with Tilda Swinton is the most interesting one, and it is responsible for great growth in the character . Kate Blanchett (Daisy) is his first love, the love that scars him deepest and gives him the richest taste of reality. Button's relationship with Daisy is also the vehicle through which the movie drives home just how painful it would be to get younger while your loved ones are making a bee-line for the grave. This theme is not explored nearly as thoroughly elsewhere in the narrative.
I wanted to love this movie. The trailer raised my expectations and the glimpses of Brad Pitt's Little Man That Could seized me by by the heart. It is certainly a very good movie, an entertaining movie, and it didn't feel too long when it was focused on the Button story. But the bridging structure -- Button's memoirs are read to an old woman on her deathbed -- seriously damage the film's emotional possibilities (at least for me). In "Forrest Gump", writer Roth had Gump sitting on a park bench telling the story of his life to passers-by and folks resting their backsides on the seat beside him. It worked. It worked because Gump himself was telling the story from his own mouth. In "Button", the story is read from a diary. When we learn the precise identity of the woman reading the diary, it is no surprise. Unfortunately, these reading scenes are more than just reading. The old woman is in a New Orleans hospital. Hurricane Katrina is bearing down. Will the storm destroy the hospital? If the filmmakers thought this gimmick would give the film more urgency, they're wrong. This stupid gimmick simply interrupts what is already a great story. Did someone think that a tale about a guy who ages backwards isn't interesting enough? Come on. Have some faith in your subject matter, people! Your little gimmick robs the film of its emotional pay-offs. We constantly cut away from the core story, at pivotal moments, to return to the old woman again. Who cares about her and the approaching storm!? I certainly didn't. The film is almost three hours long. It's not like it needed padding. Or even narration, for that matter. If the bridging sequences had been cut, the film would have clocked in at just north of two hours. The loss of one thing would have been the gain of the other.
Brad Pitt is just fine as Benjamin Button and Kate Blanchett is equally fine as Daisy, Benjamin's first and last love. Tilda Swinton, though, brings a weight to the story that lifts it to another level. It doesn't stay at the level, but a very moving epilogue to her tale (in news story form) is a welcome gift.
What is most curious about "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is that its filmmakers permitted its heavy-handed structure to rob it of its core emotions. We get to know Button, and we get to understand Button, but we don't get to feel what he feels because his internal journey is constantly interrupted. Gump didn't have that problem because Gump always told his own story his own way. Benjamin Button was robbed of that luxury.