THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Designed As a Rich Tapestry, The Picture Is A Rare Synthesis Of Style and Substance
by Vishal Verma

A Paramount (in U.S.)/Warner Bros. (foreign) release and presentation of a Kennedy/Marshall production. Produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Cean Chaffin. Directed by David Fincher. Screenplay, Eric Roth; screen story, Roth, Robin Swicord, based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Genre: Romantic Drama. Target Audience: General.
 
Starring
Benjamin Button - Brad Pitt
Daisy - Cate Blanchett
Queenie - Taraji P. Henson
Caroline - Julia Ormond
Thomas Button - Jason Flemyng
Tizzy - Mahershalalhashbaz Ali
Captain Mike - Jared Harris
Monsieur Devereux - Elias Koteas
Grandma Fuller - Phyllis Somerville
Elizabeth Abbott - Tilda Swinton
Preacher - Lance Nichols
Ngunda Oti - Rampai Mohadi
Daisy age 7 - Elle Fanning
Daisy age 10 - Madisen Beaty

Technical Analysis
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" does what technically masterful films so rarely do; it generates a remarkable sense of compassion & that too in high esteem.

The extent to which Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac) and his vast team of collaborators have succeeded in their storytelling can be seen by the fact that one comes out of the film thinking about the characters and narrative intent & also is awestruck by the special effects which are artisan-like as well.
Truly, this movie is a perfect fusion of moving combination of style and substance. The visions of Benjamin and other central characters at different ages are sights to behold; baby Ben looks like the clone of E.T., Blanchett really looks like a 23 year old.

Every scene is done with impeccable detail, from the nooks and crannies of the settings created by production designer Donald Graham Burt and the costumes by Jacqueline West to the faces of the main cast and countless extras. Alexandre Desplat's score provides the emotionally dramatic support. Fincher and lenser Claudio Miranda shoot mostly in deep focus images to maximize the information in every frame, and the depth they achieve by shooting on digital is extraordinary.

The juvenile Benjamin, 4 feet tall with a stooped back and a gleam in his eye, is one of the most ingratiating figures ever to cross a movie screen. Hobbled by ailments, he's nonetheless full of a child's vigor. You see this in Pitt's expression, since his face, amazingly, has been digitally merged with his character's small body.

But nice, ultimately, is about all there is to the character. "Benjamin Button" so thoroughly envelops us in its improbable, gorgeously rendered world that it takes nearly half the picture's overlong 2-hour, 47-minute running time to notice the lead character is, essentially, an observer of his own life.

This recognition comes even though Pitt, given the difficult task of crafting a character mostly through narration (the film unfolds as passages read from Benjamin's diary) and/or in tandem with heavy makeup and special effects, has breathed considerable life into the character. But an actor's performance composes only a fraction of a finished film, and especially one so stylistically representative of its director, not to mention its screenwriter, Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump").

A phenomenally gifted actress Blanchett is outstanding. During some scenes between Benjamin and Blanchett, the actress is so natural that makes the movie special.

Because most of the film is told in anecdotes and flashbacks, each segment is represented by the filmic era from which it would have emerged: a retiree's memories of being struck by lightning in the early 1900s are shot like hand-cranked silent films, '60s-born Caroline imagines Benjamin's travails with the grainy realism of 1970s cinema, and so on. Perhaps obviously, the film's structure owes a great debt to screenwriter Roth, who similarly (if more conspicuously) chronicled pop culture in Forrest Gump. But it's to Fincher's exclusive credit that Benjamin Button weaves these visual hallmarks inextricably into the fabric of the film, so they're visible to those interested in looking deeper but unobtrusive in the context of the actual story.

The movie scores 4 points out of 5. One for Art direction, One for Sp. Effects, One for make up & the last one is shared between Cate Blanchett for her strong performance & Eric Roth for screenwriting.    

Surely, a movie for young, middle & old.

The Story
Loosely based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, this once epic in scope and intimate in detail, David Fincher's THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON is certainly the director's most emotional film to date.

This romantic drama tells the tale of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), born in 1918 in New Orleans as a baby with wrinkles, cataracts, and arthritis. Benjamin will age backwards, getting younger as he watches those around him growing older. Included in that group are his adoptive mother, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), and Daisy (Cate Blanchett), the love of his life whom he meets when she is just a little girl and he is an old man. They age in reverse, but despite Benjamin's globe-trotting adventures, their lives repeatedly intersect. The script from Oscar winner Eric Roth bears more than a few hallmarks in common with his earlier work on FORREST GUMP: both adaptations cross decades and continents. The triumph of technology only serves to underscore the beauty of this film and of the love story at its heart.

Recommended: Winner of 3 Oscars (Art Direction, Make –Up & Sp. Effects) out of 13 nominations. ‘TCCBB’ is a must for any cinema aficionado of any age.

Other Credits
Camera (Technicolor, Deluxe color prints, widescreen, HD), Claudio Miranda; editors, Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall; music, Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Donald Graham Burt; supervising art director, Tom Reta; art directors, Randy Moore (Los Angeles), Scott Plauche, Kelly Curley (New Orleans), Michele Laliberte (Montreal); set designers, Lorrie Campbell, Jane Wuu, Clint Wallace, Randy Wilkins, Tammy Lee, Masako Masada, Ryan Heck (New Orleans); set decorator, Victor J. Zolfo; costume designer, Jacqueline West; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Mark Weingarten; sound designer-supervising sound editor, Ren Klyce; re-recording mixers, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Klyce; visual effects supervisor, Eric Barba; visual effects and animation, Digital Domain; visual effects, Asylum, Lola Visual Effects, Matte World Digital, Hydraulx, Ollin Studio, Savage Visual Effects; special effects coordinator, Burt Dalton; special makeup, Greg Cannom; makeup effects supervisor, Brian Sipe; stunt coordinator, Mickey Giacomazzi; associate producer, Jim Davidson; assistant director, Bob Wagner; second unit director (India and Cambodia), Tarsem; second unit camera, Dan Holland; casting, Laray Mayfield. Reviewed at Eros Preview Theatre, February, 24, 2009. Running time: 167 MIN.

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