Well… shit. So this is
disappointing.
Here’s the thing: David Fincher movies are worth getting excited
about. Sure, he’s had his misfires—Panic Room, that
Alien 3 business—but c’mon: Seven.
Zodiac. Fight Club. Scrupulous, poised, and with a
masterful control of tone, you’d think he’d be the perfect director for
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which the titular
character ages in reverse, starting life as a blind, deaf troll and
gradually growing into the charming, handsome Brad Pitt. It’s equal
parts fantasy and drama, and at points, you can see Fincher’s hand with
moments that are surreal, strange, and heart-stoppingly sad. But the
rest of the film… well, the rest of the film feels a lot like
Forrest Gump, complete with goofy plot devices and banal
clichés.
I’m gonna lay the blame at the feet of screenwriter Eric “Ol’
Schmaltzy” Roth, who (very loosely) adapts F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922
short story into a shiny bit of Oscar bait. (Surprise! Back in ’94,
Roth wrote another film with goofy plot devices and banal
clichés, that time with a moronic Tom Hanks.) Beginning with
freaky geriatric baby Benjamin getting abandoned in 1918, Button follows him as he becomes a sailor, serves in WWII, and falls in love
with an unpleasant girl named Daisy (Cate Blanchett). There is also an
utterly superfluous modern-day framing story that (A) was clearly
cobbled together from Titanic outtakes, and (B) ominously
involves the impending Hurricane Katrina. (UGH.)
It seems unfair to rag on a film for being sentimental and nostalgic
when it’s about sentimentality and nostalgia—still, it
gets wearying. Anytime Button tries to say something that
doesn’t feel rote, it gets overwhelmed by Alexandre Desplat’s sappy
score, or the fact that practically everything is filmed in
sepia tones, or—my favorite!—a magical CG hummingbird that
occasionally flits by to serve as a emotional exclamation point. But
there is something here of note: Benjamin Button himself
(excellently played by Pitt, with a melancholic loneliness and some
impressive makeup and special effects) is at once loveable and
unknowable, and as Fincher’s goofy film swirls around him, he serves as
a genuinely emotional, fascinating core. He’s a fantastic character.
Hopefully someday, someone will make a good movie about him.
