The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Personally, I didn't expect to be so taken with Button but it was a joy to watch his life story. I have a feeling that David Fincher took the same meticulous approach as he did in Zodiac and just grafted it into a fairy tale about a guy who is growing younger and making his way through life despite being so peculiar. This acting recital from Brad Pitt (I stopped being shocked about the Oscar nomination) shines through the mask, and the completely natural special effects are perfectly complemented by red-head Cate Blanchett. It occurs to me to compare it with Zemekis's Forrest Gump but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button triumphs over dumb escapades with subtle humor and minimalism. Again, compliments to Fincher and also to Pitt. P.S.: It really pays to see it in a movie theater. (02/14/2009)

Unlike Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not a celebration of an exceptional "fool", but much more an ad absurdum led by a metaphor for the ruthlessness of passing time, which unites and divides and does not take hostages... We do not find herein a fundamental part of a great history that the heroes would, like Švejk, circumnavigate in a cocoon of wise madness; Benjamin's journey is more pensive, simpler, and not as epic. In this respect, it is much more like Burton's Big Fish - it is not a metaphor for great society, but a metaphor for one life, one time, into which the times of the other characters are freely intertwined. The uniqueness of everyday life, the search for ideal balance, the fateful chaining of various timelines and the extraordinarily conciliatory picture of old age, is all loosely chained around the picture of a clock that goes backwards. Fincher tells a fairy tale in which the tones of harmony do not dominate, but rather the tones of melancholy and a kind of conciliatory realization that everything passes away, regardless of the direction in which time passes. Finiteness is immutable. Perhaps at first I was missing some more individuality, although the sense for detail, the wonderfully pastel visual and the fantastic pace of the storytelling are admirable. But that is not what this is about. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a Hollywood film, it has the philosophy of Hollywood (it does not offend), and has Hollywood emotions (it does not offend). The sentiment is balanced by the absence of an epic idyll. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a film about mortality, not immortality... That's why it is able do something more than an ordinary love story – evoke a feeling of deep participation. The film succeeded from my perspective, even though its wisdom is a bit typically “old". (02/15/2009)

David Fincher has better stuff under his belt, but Benjamin Button is a memorable film nonetheless. It’s a sentimental tale about life and death that in 160 minutes portrays a completely ordinary story affected by unusual circumstances. But there’s power in simplicity, it allows the film to reveal the meaning of all the symbols that fill its runtime, delivering by the end an emotional load that mixes sadness, melancholy and fatality in precisely calculated proportions, one that will bring tears to the eyes of the more sensitive viewers… The firm director’s hand and the dreamy atmosphere are only secondary reasons to grant it 5 stars. Gorgeous. (01/31/2009)

After a second screening, I was able to fully appreciate this moving meditation on life and death. It just confirmed for me the well-known truth that great films are to be enjoyed in the darkness of the cinema, with quality sound and image, and that it is for films like this that the big screens are made. The film flew by so that the 2 and a half hours felt like half an hour, I lost track of time and enjoyed the hypnotically captivating symbiosis of image and music. Then the emotions surfaced naturally, I would have set a lot of the thoughts expressed there in stone, and I guess it's true that the more you have experienced and the more you realize the transience of time, the more the film speaks to you internally (my mother was bawling like a baby). Cinema magic. Thanks, David. (02/09/2009)

I have a lot of respect for David Fincher, not just because of this magnificent drama. It's incredible the way he can present a film to the audience. The story is original. Brad Pitt’s performance makes this film really unique and unbeatable!! 100% for the great cast, the idea, and the way it’s presented. (02/10/2011)