CINEMA: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

If you really want to enjoy the numerous delights of this film you are going to have to suspend your disbelief and just go with the flow.

Based on a short F. Scott Fitzgerald story, it details in wonderful colour and light the extraordinary life of Benjamin (Brad Pitt), a child who is born old and gets younger as he matures.  Throughout his curious existence he meets and is loved by a number of people including his surrogate ‘mom’ (Taraji. P Henson), an aristocratic English woman (Tilda Swinton), and his childhood friend Daisy (Cate Blanchett). He has many adventures while sailing the seas in a tugboat with weathered Captain Mike (Jared Harris), but finally returns to the retirement home where he was abandoned as a baby (his father believing him to be some freak of nature).

Director David Fincher manages to pull off what should be unbelievable due to some lovely acting (Brad and Cate have real chemistry together), amazing special effects and a screenplay by David Hare that is full of magic. There is plenty of humour, lots of fantastical camera work, but overall a poignancy about the film as it explores the passage of time and our slow march towards death.

However, the film is hopeful in tone rather than despairing, and Benjamin repeatedly demonstrates how by living life to the full and never ignoring an opportunity to explore or learn, humans can in effect overcome their own mortality.      Dee Pilgrim