Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (No Spoilers)

Though we use a lot of fake names here at The Brothel, I assure you this piece was not written by me, Script Doctor Eric, DJ Octoon, or any one else who has contributed to the site in the past. It was written by a friend who we're going to try to get to write for us regularly - a friend who has some sweet connections and got to go to an early screening. Really, a friend. I'm not going to write "seriously," because that might negate my sincerity. -KV

A Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (No Spoilers)
by Langdon Auger


As a David Fincher fan (Fight Club, Seven, Zodiac) I am quite disappointed to say Benjamin Button is an awful film. Two hours and forty-five minutes to tell the story of a man who ages backwards for some reason. It's never really explained and it never seems to impact the story. And as if it's the most normal thing in the world, nobody acknowledges that the guy ages backwards.

Also confusing is the relationship Button has with his adopted mother. He gets abandoned by his dad and is raised by an African American lady in Louisiana. Is 1920s New Orleans so forward thinking that nobody from the local government wants to intervene when a black woman raises a white baby? Of course I'm fine with mixed race families, but I am not fine with movies that are this fundamentally ignorant of history. Everyone in 1920s New Orleans is okay with a black woman raising a white kid? Maybe that's why this is called a fantasy film.

This mother character also has the most ambiguous job. At first she seems to be a maid in a retirement home, but as the story progresses it looks like she owns the place because I never see a boss or anything. So this is an independent black woman in 1920s New Orleans who raises an abandoned white child while owning her own retirement home comprised of elderly-white-southern people who don't seem to mind being told what to do by this woman. Again, no one in the movie even seems to acknowledge how unlikely this situation would be.

It's a silly movie because it is supposed to be this profound treatise on life, love, and death and never really makes any sincere comment on life love or death. It treats it superficially and a bunch of teeny-bopper girls in love with Brad Pitt will confuse it with philosophy. Maybe i have seen too many Woody Allen movies to take this superficial tripe, or maybe i just saw the same subject matter dealt with more satisfactorily by Charlie Kaufman's "Synechdoche, New York."

I also have problems with the setting of the story. It is told in flashbacks as Cate Blanchette is in a hospital during hurricane Katrina. I will give a bright shiny nickel to whoever can tell me what the significance of hurricane Katrina was to the story. No one can do it because it was nothing but a cheap attempt to piggy-back off the national sympathies towards New Orleans. I heard David Fincher talk about directing this movie and even he couldn't tell us why. He just said it was a big event. Thanks douche bag, thanks for making the movie so long and pointless.

Also during the talk, Fincher admitted he had never read the short story the movie is based on. Jeez, you cant be bothered to read the 20 pages of source material to learn that this is not a story which should be blown up to a nearly three hour film?

Some other points:

-Just because it's long doesn't make it an epic.

-Just because it's sad doesn't mean it's dramatic.

-Just because it's an accent doesnt mean it's acting
(But Cate Blanchette rocks)

-Just because it's Fincher, doesnt mean it's good

-Just because there are conflicts with the studio doesn't mean it has artistic credibility. (Sometimes studios step in and interfere because an egotistical director has blown the budget of a small art house film up to 150 million dollars because he has to have digital effects for a story conceit that doesn't make that much sense and isnt all that important.)

Other than that, it's not a bad movie. Good visual effects, for sure.

-TLB