The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)–****

Zemeckis, an undisputed master of film technology, shows off an equal aptitude for vivid storytelling in bringing Winston Groom’s picaresque novel to screen.
–Rita Kempley’s 1994 Washington Post review of Forrest Gump

Seriously?

I hated Forrest Gump. Hated, hated, hated Forrest Gump, as Roger Ebert would say. Every time I see the 1994 Best Picture winner on television, I dislike it even more. The notion of the story, the film’s saccharine sentimentality and the unbelievable protagonist, grate on my sensibilities as a moviegoer. And then there are the visual effects, which in those early days of computer technology killed my already challenged suspension of disbelief.

Why mention this in a review of David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Because if there was any film that succeeded exactly where Forrest Gump failed, it’s Button.

Let’s face it. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is narratively designed to be even more unbelievable than the story of a mentally challenged man and his many adventures. Here Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), a man who ages backwards, has a life-long romantic entanglement with Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a girl who ages like everyone else. They meet when Benjamin looks like he is in his seventies and Daisy is still a girl of around 10. Somewhere in the middle, the two meet again, fall passionately in love, and are happy, if only for a few good years.

Their love isn’t happily ever after. It’s a fleeting passion that surfaces at the moment the time is right for both. They have other lives and other lovers. It’s not the type of romance you usually see in a sweeping Hollywood picture. In fact, there’s a cool sentimentality to Fincher’s first foray into epic drama territory that makes me wonder if the New New Hollywood has finally arrived.

Outside of blockbuster tent poles, it’s hard to find a film that so intricately weaves its use of technology into the filmmaking. We’ve come to expect motion capture technology in superhero movies or fantasy films. We don’t blink at the computer-generated landscapes. But here Fincher employs technology that allows the audience to take in the story, albeit one with fantasy elements, in order to make us fall for the romance of it all.

Pitt, as Button, seems at much at ease with the technology as does Fincher. He gives a performance that is at times breathlessly romantic or desperately lonely, so much so that we begin to understand the film and its other characters even more. Pitt has never impressed me more.

I’d love to say more about the cast, including the always perfect Blanchett, but so much goes right with this film, it’s hard to find space in a single review to list it all. Donald Graham Burt’s stunning production design, Alexandre Desplat’s enchanting score, and most vividly, Claudio Miranda’s cinematography combine to create Fincher’s most unexpectedly alluring film yet. It may not be his best, but it’s an achievement that we’ll be talking about for ages.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by David Fincher, is in theaters now.