Benjamin Button tells us he was born 'under unusual circumstances'. To be precise he was born a rather ugly and wrinkled baby of eighty odd years old. In the book, he started as a full sized eighty year old, so it's no wonder his mother died in childbirth but the film is done a bit differently and he is baby sized.
In the film version, his father abandons him on the steps of an old folk's home, where he is taken and raised by Queenie, a carer there. At first they think he's going to die but the ravages of old age are gradually shed from his body and he progresses from wheelchair to walking stick and then beyond. As everyone continues to grow older, he grows younger. Brad Pitt plays Button pretty much all the way through with the help of heavy make-up, CGI and having his head electronically placed on other actors bodies.
We follow his life story, from his birth in New Orleans on the day that the First World War ended right through to his death. It is told in my 'favourite' form, that of flashback, and from the deathbed of his truelove, the now elderly Daisy (Cate Blanchett) as Hurricane Katrina rages outside. Daisy's grandmother was a resident at the same home, which is where she first met Benjamin. They remain in contact throughout their lives, seemingly destined to be together, despite the two of them ageing in different directions.
It is read from his diaries by her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond). It’s a method I'm not sure I like as it continually breaks up the storyline.
There are also other oddities. The addition of Mr Cake (Monsieur Gateau) and his train station clock that ran backwards in the hope that it would wind back time and undo the death of his Son and others from the battlefields of the Great War. I never grasped why this and its tenuous link to Benjamin's life running backwards was added.
Also, at times the film tries to do too much, like mapping out the sequence of bad luck that led to Daisy's dancing career being ended when she was struck by a Parisian taxi. Then there's the old man who was hit by lightning seven times... a slightly funny diversion but not much more.
Button is lucky he was born in 1918; had he been born in 2009 he would have been all over the papers and labelled as a freak. His life would have been 'I'm Celebrity Get Me Outta Here' hell. Instead, he leaves America working on a tugboat. He visits Russia, where he has an affair with Tilda Swinton, well someone has to I suppose, and he ends up involved in the Second World War.
When he returns, he rediscovers Daisy, now a successful dancer. Yet he turns her down, preferring to wait until he is 'young enough' for her.
After her accident, they eventually end up together and have a child. I think we all worked out long before Caroline did, what her relationship to Benjamin was. She won't remember him though because as he hurtles his way towards short trousers, he walks out of their lives. Knowing that when he becomes Kevin The Teenager, he'll be good for nothing but angst and sulks.
I thought it might end there and that they'd bottle his death as he faded back to zero, but they didn't. In fact, he came back, after a trip around the world, sowing his oats. Teenagers, they're so unreliable. Would Daisy be tempted to have one of the road and see if he was as good aged sixteen, of course she would.
It's all rather sad at the end as Daisy takes charge of the infant Benjamin and nurses him towards death.
The film has been given quite a bit of criticism in reviews but then has also gained a load of Oscar nominations. Realistically I don't see any great acting performances here, but that doesn't seem to matter, although at times the New Orleans accents grate a bit, as a whole it's a very clever film. It's also a long film but it never drags. I loved it.
Button went through much the same plusses and minuses in life as the rest of us, just in the opposite direction. The film tries to show you life from a different perspective. Like all of us, he spent a lifetime trying to figure out how this love thing works and still only just about got there. The message is that age is after all just a number and no matter what that number is, we can choose what we do with our lives but in the end, Button, like all of us, is unable to stop time.
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