The plot is a one-trick pony, but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button should make like a pony express and haul in some serious dough over the holidays.
Brad Pitt’s good looks start to emerge through the wrinkles.
At 2 1/2 hours long, Button is full of wonderful detours and quirky characters, but no matter how much it tries to be profound and show us deeper truths, the story is like a chocolate Easter bunny — sweet and pretty on the outside — hollow once you bite into it.
Brad Pitt plays a man who is born old and gets younger as he ages. Somewhere in the middle he gets to hook up with the love of his life, the glorious Cate Blanchett who he befriended when they were children, except he was old and wrinkly, and she was — well, just as cute as a button.
Photo: Brad and Cate finally get busy — although she’s probably too old for him at this stage of the game…
Act 3 is the most problematic: Button’s final decision to do the right thing for those he loves isn’t one bit believable. Although one might argue that a fantasy shouldn’t have to be realistic to work — I don’t subscribe to that notion. Just take a look at another epic tale by Eric Roth, Button’s screenwriter: “Forrest Gump.” No matter how far-fetched, I believed and wanted to believe every second of it.
Forrest works because it depicts a simple man’s (I won’t say “idiot” because we all know that “stupid is as stupid does”) odyssey through a changing America — and as events unfold around him he becomes a part of them. I haven’t the foggiest notion what’s really going on in Button’s world, but things like racism in the deep south are simply ignored. This is kinda important because Button is loved and nurtured by a black adoptive mother Queenie (great work by Taraji P. Henson.) The duo doesn’t get flack from anybody really, and so Button is able to take on the world with confidence. Hey, with a supposed death sentence on his head for being so old, what does he have to lose?
Of course, it helps that once he begins his journeys he just gets better looking and as the wrinkles fall away — face it, no one looks better in a white t-shirt, leather jacket and jeans than Brad Pitt or maybe James Dean back in the day.
Pitt’s performance is simple, but effective — he looks on at the world with a sort of amused detachment, in it but not really of it. He’s joined by a cast of some of the most interesting actors working today, including Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Julia Ormond and Elias Koteas.
Here’s a little note about my bashing the whole deeper truths part of the movie. Although I personally enjoyed Button, for me it was like a box of popcorn, once it was done I was over it. But two people who are very close to me gave me their observations which I found very interesting.
My older sister said she cried so hard she couldn’t leave the theatre. The themes of life and death — of simply growing older moved her tremendously. She had just spent the holidays with her grandson who is only 2 and our wonderful Aunty Mame-type Aunt who is 86. For her, the movie brought home the reality of her own mortality and her inability to stop time’s passing.
At the other end of the spectrum, my 21-year-old daughter was inspired by Benjamin Button’s ability to simply seize life despite the obstacles that stood in his way. In his first foray into the world, he goes to sea, the dream of a young man, yet his body is old. She thought about how this could’ve stopped him, how he could have just given up, stayed put, and let others take care of him. I think she related to it because she is young and facing life’s challenges of school, career, love.
It inspired her because he didn’t make excuses – he just lived life.
No matter what you think of this movie, it will certainly make for some good discussions.
