Friday, January 4, 2019

Movie review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

 
 An adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald tale set in the early 1900’s, Benjamin Button is born as an old man and ages backwards, continually growing younger. Exploring the confusion of aging backwards, the movie also exposes how similar growing old is with being (or in this case becoming) young.

Brad Pitt (Benjamin), Cate Blanchett (Daisy), Julia Ormond (Caroline),  Jason Flemyng (Thomas Button), Tilda Swinton (Elizabeth), Taraji Henson (Queenie).

The film starts off interestingly enough with a bit of drama and some sci-fi type reality twists that keep your attention pretty well. As plot and character development continue the story remains interesting until about the time Benjamin hits mid-life, then it stalls for a while. About that point the film turned into a drama that just wasn’t that interesting and I found myself thinking that almost 3 hours was more time than was needed to tell this story. Toward the end things got interesting again culminating in a good if somewhat predictable ending.

Acting was very well done by everyone in this film, and there were a lot of actors in this movie. Though I’m not a big fan of Pitt or Blanchett, they both did wonderfully well in this film. Supporting actors all did very nicely as well.

Sets and costuming were high quality with good attention to detail. Camera work and backgrounds were also very well done. This was obviously a higher budget film as evidenced by the quality throughout. Dialogue was well done although it was difficult to understand the dying Daisy throughout the film, and sound was well done.

Overall I thought this a very well done drama, if not a bit long for the story. The movie really prompts you to think about the similarities between the young and the old and how they can meet in the middle.

Some brief violence, language, and sexual content but this one really is okay for preens and above.

Released: 2008
Reviewed: 12.19.18
Star rating: 4 out of 5
Genre: Drama, Romance, Fantasy, Movies based on Books

copyright ©2018 Dave Riedel

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