Benjamin Button’s story is one of excitement, adventure, joy, pain, and growth, almost entirely through the reverse order that you might expect in the “natural” order of things. Of course, many critics agreed with that assessment, and the film was nominated for thirteen Academy Awards, and its fair share of Golden Globes. And, of course, if you’ve been anywhere near a television or pop culture magazine, you know a bit about the story.
But just in case you’ve been fasting from all the pop culture you can get for free, here’s the quick recap. Benjamin Button’s case is in fact curious because he ages in reverse; Button starts out born old and grows gradually younger. The story follows the underpinning of love and loss that develops between Button and his one true love, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), and also follows Button through this reverse ageism through to the end… as told to Daisy’s daughter as Daisy herself lies dying of old age. In my shortest review ever, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is Forrest Gump as told by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It’s more bittersweet, more insightful, less amusing, but incredibly fanciful. Maybe the two aren’t quite as different; maybe Button and Gump would get along just fine, but for now, it’s more about love and dying, than love and life.
As I said before, this probably isn’t your first go-round at a Button review, though, ignoring the obvious 2% who have been out of electronic range or fasting from technology. So, let me dive into the specifics of the Criterion edition: this is the story of how the movie was made, how it almost wasn’t, and why it was so amazing that the part of Benjamin Button would be played almost entirely by the estimable talent of Brad Pitt. I must admit that I found some of the back story prior to Pitt, prior to director David Fincher’s involvement, well before the Oscar nominations, to be the most intriguing.
If you consider that Fincher is the man behind the camera for Seven, Panic Room, Zodiac, The Game, and Fight Club among others, then you can recognize that he was THE man for the job. But it almost fell to Steven Spielberg, and it almost wasn’t made, but in the end it was. And the “First Trimester” of the documentary second disc tells that story, before the “Second Trimester” takes over in the two parts of production. Here, the set and the characterizations get a once over, and the timeliness and timelessness of the movie start to be apparent, even without the plot set before you. I must admit, I’m rarely a special editions watcher, but for the points clarified, the highlights illuminated, I found myself wanting to watch the film again with an eye for what the director and his crew saw in each scene.
The “Third Trimester” finds us dealing with the special effects/visual effects of a movie that is driven by Pitt (and the crew) in their ability to make you believe that this is really an old man getting younger. They call it “youthenization” but the concepts of the story are made so amazingly real only because of the technology involved and the tender care of the producers. And finally, we are treated to the “Birth,” the premiere of the film at its December 2008 charity screening, even as the crew involved admits to their own amazement in seeing the images on the page turned into the realistic, lifelike motions of the story on screen. And, like a true wordsmith (intended or not), Taraji Henson admits that the people involved treated the film like it was “a baby, their own child.” How a propos for a movie about an old baby man who gradually becomes a baby old man.
So, enjoy the story; but for those who like the background, who want to peel things back and find out how things work, this two-disc special edition shows the love that made the film happen. Born from the short story of Fitzgerald’s in the 1920s, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button proves that this timeless story has much to share, and we still have much to learn about love, loss and aging with grace.
