A Humble Critique of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"

Hollywood seems to be undergoing a midlife crisis. Indeed the box office seems to be yearning for the day gone by with 'recent' pictures such as 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', 'The Poseidon Adventure', and the upcoming montage of horror flicks including the new 'Friday the13th'.

The recent Christmas season brought us another Hollywood 'remake' titled "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" which is loosely based on a very intriguing short story by the great F. Scott Fitzgerald. Now for those of you folks that are still eager to see this you may want stop reading now!! Last Warning!!

At the risk of sounding like that pretentious friend that we all have (let's call him Howie) that says "Oh the book is so much better!", I have to agree with Howie.

The Premise of the story is that a man is born old and ages backward until he passes as an infant. The movie is set at turn of the century in New Orleans where Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is deserted by his father onto the steps of a nursing home with a small wad of cash. Benjamin undergoes all the hardship that may be expected of a young man in his eighties. He naturally has a difficult time relating to 'youngsters' his age. He falls in love with a young girl 6 years his junior (he appeared of course to be much, much older than she). He falls out of love with her, ends up in Europe, and decides to have an affair with the wife of an English diplomat. After a while he goes back to New Orleans looking much younger still and rekindles the love of his youth (enter Cate Blanchet). The movie goes on at a slow and very predictable pace until Benjamin dies as a baby with a keen sense that he has been there before. The film tries to make us sympathise with Benjamin but I felt nothing but complete indifference. The directors try to tug -nay yank at our emotions, but all I felt was boredom.

I've also heard certain 'gushy' critics compare Benjamin Button to Forrest Gump. What is it that we loved about Forrest? We didn't love him for his handicap. We loved him because he overcame his handicap to achieve amazing feats and did so without a touch of malice.

A much better version of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is Mr. Fitzgerald's. The story is hardly recognizable and much more comedic with a touch of whimsy.