The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P. Hensen, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, Julia Ormond and Faune A. Chambers
screenplay by Eric Roth
directed by David Fincher
Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
Based on a 1921 short story of the same title by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an interesting film to say the least. We are taken backwards through the 80-year life of Benjamin Button who is born with all the ailments of a man dying of old age. But he survives, and as he ages his body becomes younger, regressing through old age, middle age, young adulthood, adolescence until, finally after 80-years he dies as a baby. Along the way we are given ample opportunity to think about what age means, sexuality and sex roles, inter-generational romance, and what the role in society is of the elderly, etc. I thought it was provocative that way. Provocative with merit. I am in absolutely no hurry to see it again, though, because the story - the relationship between Brat Pitt and Cat Blanchett’s characters - did not interest me too much. In fact, I found the character actors surrounding them to be just as, if not more interesting.