The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (spoilers)

Just got back from seeing this movie and I was overwhelmed by its mediocrity. Everything was slow, ponderous, and safe. It had an interesting scenario, but the ramifications of de-aging were never explored. Most people are frightened of getting older. Did Benjamin fear getting younger? We don’t know. What was it like getting healthier, handsomer, and stronger as time goes on? Benjamin never tells us. In fact, we know very little about a man we just spent an agonizing three hours with. How was he educated? We never saw him go to school. Is maturity a process of time? A biological necessity? Would a person who ages in reverse get less mature as time progresses? None of these deeper themes were explored. It’s as if Fincher got distracted by his cool CGI toys and never bothered to ponder what the film was about. What was the point? It spends most of its three hours talking about loss and the finite nature of life. You know, the stuff ordinary people deal with every day. What was so special about Benjamin? There was a unique viewpoint that could have been taken advantage of, but the filmmakers couldn’t seem to grasp it, and in the end it everything was all too familiar. Predictable and pedestrian. Not worth the budget it took to produce and the awards it will undoubtedly receive.

What did you guys think? Did I miss something?

I thought it was a good film. The fact that it didn’t answer all those questions sort of indicates to me, anyway, that we are meant to figure out the answers for ourselves. I liked that it didn’t preach a central message but sort of made you work out a meaning on your own.

Though it was pretty obvious to me that Benjamin feared getting younger, as he left his wife and kid based on this fear. I thought the film made it obvious that he was stupid as hell for doing that, particularly since his daughter was a grown woman before he was dependent on anyone. He made a mistake and he regretted it. They repeated the line many times, ‘‘You never know what’s coming for you,’’ yet he presumed to know, and in doing so sabotaged himself.

What’s interesting to me, is that because infancy and very old age are both a state of helplessness and dependence, Benjamin’s life started and ended exactly as anyone else’s. Nothing really did set him apart. I sort of thought that was a central idea of the movie–that this man is us, we just needed the novelty of his situation to grasp our own impermanent nature. Every meaningful connection we have is just a happy coincidence of timing.

My favorite part of the film was the comment that you can pretty much start life over at any point and become a new person. That fits very well with my own personal philosophy.

If the Toms (Hanks or Cruise) had starred in it, I wouldn’t have thought much about it. Something about Brad Pitt :cool: made it good for me. It had an element of Forrest Gump (Gah) about it, but overall I thought that the story was told well, and that the cinematography was pretty spectacular. I guess I was a little bit disappointed but would still recommend it. Pitt was going to be my pick for Best Actor but now I have to go with Sean Penn. This movie will be nominated for a bunch of awards, just not sure it will win many. I could be wrong. For some reason the lightning guy made me laugh every time he told a story. Guess I am just gullible.

I enjoyed the movie even though all of Carnick’s criticisms are true. It’s hard to make a story that covers a lifetime work without some central thread and the writer chose a lifelong love story. It would have been more interesting if it were just about Ben and his relation to the world rather than the Ben and Daisy story. Still I did enjoy it.

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, although I agree the Gump-like touches were off-putting. Gorgeous photography (and stars), terrific performances - especially Jared Harris, possibly exorcizing some paternal demons - and a story that was engaging. I probably found it so because it delivered exactly what the previews led me to expect, a love story. I’m sorry others didn’t like it, but I’m not sure it’s a fair criticism that the director made the movie he wanted to make, not the one you would wanted to see. But if you feel that way, I recommend staying away from the upcoming The Time Traveler’s Wife, which has a very similar storyline.

Just noticed from that link that TTT’sW was once optioned by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Hmmm.

I haven’t seen it, nor do I have any interest in seeing it, but I’m curious about how they did his birth and death. How does the story explain a woman giving birth to an old man? Did he die by simply de-aging to a fetus who needed to be in-utero to survive?

The website for the local cinema gave the impression that he was aging normally, then started de-aging at some point.

He was a baby-sized old man and died as a baby.

Sure, I’m all for ambiguous, but I don’t enjoy mining for something that I feel isn’t there. Stories need a thread, otherwise what’s the point?

Did he really regret it? I thought I remember one of his last lines to Daisy being something like “I’m glad I decided to give my daughter a real father.” Also, I don’t understand why Ben would leave his daughter after his father abandoned him. You would think that Ben would want to correct his dad’s mistakes. He would have had several good years and probably would have seen his daughter reach adulthood before slipping away. Just like every other parent. So what was his problem? The “You never know what’s coming to you” line bugged me, as it seemed like an attempt to cash in on a new Gumpism.

That’s my point. In the end Ben was just too ordinary. It is my understanding that in the short story he was born a grown man with wisdom and intelligence from the very beginning. Sure it doesn’t “make sense,” but if we’re going to go fantasy lets go all the way. The movie Ben just has a weird reverse progeria. He grew up then grew down again. In trying to make it more realistic they cut out the rich bits of potential storytelling.

Agreed. I liked that message.

I thought it was an interesting rumination on mortality, impermanence and loss. I think the OP’s questions are mostly beside the point. It wasn’t supposed to be about the mechanics of aging backwards. His backwards aging was just a device to throw perspective onto the normality of everybody else. there wasn’t supposed to be anything “special” about Benjamin’s personality. He just provides a different way to think about the impermance of life. There’s a refrain in the movie about everybody ultimately going through life alone. That was a major theme too. I found the whole thing somewhat Buddhist in its outlook.

I think it might help to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original short story. You can read it online right here. It’s very short and much more minimalistic (and the movie takes virtually nothing from it but the title character and the basic premise), but I think the underlying themes are the same.

I agree with Diogenes about the themes of impermanence and loss.
You’re born alone, you make your own life, and truly, you die alone.
The last half hour, as Benjamin gets younger and younger quicker and quicker, I especially got this feeling of the ephemeral quality of life, the way the days suddenly dwindle down and then you’re done.
I could have done without the sideplot of Katrina, it felt intrusive and distracting, and the movie did drag in the middle.
I enjoyed the symbolism, such as the hummingbird and its infinity symbol wing beats. This might seem heavy-handed to some, but worked for me.
I also enjoyed many of the peripheral characters, especially Queenie–as well as the lightning guy.

I thought it was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

For a movie that is has time as a central theme, they sure don’t display it very well.

One such instance, the old (huge) closed up house on the lake. Looks exactly the same in it did in various scenes that were decades apart. Same for the "old folks home’ or his fathers house. All those things were permanent.

Mind numbing slow.

Nobody EVER said “JESUS H CHRIST! YOU USED TO LOOK LIKE DICK CHENEY ON CRACK AND NOW YOU LOOK LIKE BRAD FREAKING PITT. YOU ARE AGING BACKWARDS!”

The Rocket? Really?!?! We need that for symbolic sex?
Why did the spirit of the sea captain show up at the hospital at the end? He is the humming bird. It was HIS special symbol.

I didn’t realize going in that this was directed by David Fincher. Ever since The Game, I have done my best to avoid him.
OH man, I hate to say this because I hate this phrase but I want those 16 hours of my life back.

What was the point of the reverse aging? It was a cheap, distracting gimmick. Almost the entire film could have remained the same if Pitt had aged normally. The characters were dull, boring, ordinay and I had absolutely no reason to care about any of them. I think this film could have worked out ok if they had tightened it up. Maybe cut it down by about half an hour. The cinematography was excellent. The acting was good, as well as the direction. But the plot was something awful.

We liked this film a lot, although I admit it felt like we started watching it in 2008 and only got out of the theater in 2009…they could have easily cut an hour from this film…for instance, the entire section with the mystery woman in the hotel…took forever and just sort of fizzled.

It is nice, however, that I can officially say I look like Brad Pitt…granted, I look like Brad Pitt half way through that film, but still…I look like Brad Pitt!

The reviews I glanced at were good, and I saw it this afternoon. It had some nice moments, but it was overall, disappointing. It was long, and I felt the length.

I hated being jolted out of the story to Daisy in the hospital/Katrina. I didn’t feel anything for the daughter, and the whole time I kept thinking if she’s dying and ready to go, her face should be far more gaunt than that. (My mother and mother-in-law died of cancer and the gaunt, shrunken face is so starkly evocative of imminent death.)

So… it was okay. It was good. It was not great.

Thanks for the link to the original story–I am going to read it now.

I liked the movie except for the present day scenes in the hospital, which were pointless and just dragged on and on.

How did they do the makeup for when Brad Pitt was an old man at the beginning? It didn’t look CGI, was it another actor? It looked like Pitt.

I read that they used little people for body doubles, then digitally projected Pitt’s face onto the stand-ins. Essentially, Pitt was only doing vocal and facial performances for those scenes.

I don’t want to really get into an argument, but…why would you want to watch a movie about that? Doesn’t that happen enough in real life? I think most people would agree that the deaths of people you know and the thought of your own death are two of the worst thoughts and experiences in life. So why would you want to pay money to be prompted to think about them?

I am not going to see this movie, obviously, but a lot of people I know did.

Why would you ever want to listen to a sad song or read a sad book or enjoy any work of art that evokes any serious ruminations at all?

Do you only watch happy talking animals movies where nothing bad ever happens and you never have to think about anything sobering or sad?

No, I like sad music and some sad books. I’m not opposed to serious ruminations – just not about the very worst things in life. Sadness, heartbreak, illness – you can get through those, you can overcome and get better. Death is forever. I don’t understand why you’d pay money to be urged to think about something so sad, that’s going to happen in real life to you, and to all the people you know, so it’s not like by skipping the movie you’re hiding from it. You’re just not paying for the “privilege.”