The Button fabliaux
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a $150 million fable masquerading as an epic, could have been a minor masterwork had its talented moviemakers removed 30 or 35 minutes from its three-hour running time. Designed as a series of vignettes, the story concerns the title character, who is born as a baby-sized monstrous-looking old man, abandoned by his father on the steps of an old-age home, and, in time, grows younger, taller and handsomer.
As played by a genuinely impressive Brad Pitt, his face is CGI-grafted onto another actor’s body, from ages 6–16. Button finally learns to walk without braces and becomes a full part of the old-age staff, where his adoptive black mother holds sway. This early-life stuff takes up nearly 40 minutes, when finally a recognizable Pitt emerges and begins his series of adventures away from his New Orleans upbringing. Once these adventures kick in, the movie picks up and begins to strut its stuff, with terrific episodes involving Button’s new friends, his work on a tugboat, an affair with a sophisticated Londoner (Tilda Swinton, never better), a stint in wartime, the return of his first love (Cate Blanchett, impeccable) and the irony of watching others age while he grows young.
Button, directed by David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac), has a story frame: A middle-aged daughter reads from Button’s journal to her hospital-bound dying mother (an unrecognizable Blanchett), and we see the episodes (whose truthfulness the daughter doubts). This frame provides surprise after surprise, keeping the story fresh.
When Benjamin is 25, he marries, and his wife gives birth to a child. For reasons not to be revealed here, Benjamin leaves the marriage, and his wife, now middle-aged, does not see him again until he is 16.
Benjamin Button is one of those rare movies that becomes better as it goes along: its second half is powerful and fascinating, as is its risk-taking ending–inevitable but surprising. The first half of the movie needs all the trimming it can get, but the self-indulgence of the moviemakers seriously compromises everything–audience patience, clarity of plot-line, and the story’s own timeline.
The casting of Pitt, Swinton and Blanchett could not be better. The special effects are almost shockingly good–aging and “youthing” several characters (for flashbacks-within-flashbacks) fascinatingly. If you’re a film buff you’ll know this project has been kicking around forever, loosely based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and under the wing of several directors, most of whom wanted to do it as a comedy. It was thought too risky as a drama, fable or not. These film-makers here waded right in, and took every chance. Perhaps you ought to take a chance on Benjamin Button, too.
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