"Fasten" yourself to a fascinating ride =

Rating: 9/10 (5 December 2008)

(Based on an advance preview:) I tend to be impressed by films that effectively achieve a wide epic-type story-telling "scope", and this is a very telling commentary on relationships over long-ranging lives. It starts out with a surfacedly- difficult premise -- a guy Benjamin (BRAD PITT) who ages in reverse and meets love interest Daisy (CATE BLANCHETT). With wonderful makeup, cgi effects and acting, it all "WORKS", enhanced by strong efforts by the supporting cast members: TARAJI P. HENSON as the housekeeper at a rooming house who adopts him as a baby, JARED HARRIS as Captain Mike, TILDA SWINTON as someone he gets attached to, JULIA ORMOND as Daisy's daughter Caroline, and numerous people living at the rooming house. It succeeds in director David Fincher's goal of showing "mortality and life and the way we're touched and affected by" the people "we meet along the way". I found this to be an often sweet and charming film that meanders successfully through the "complicated" lives and times of its many characters.