Whatever the Case May Be

Some of the movies I've been seeing lately, some of you out there may not even have heard of. Many have been lower-profile "art house" fare thrust into the spotlight by Golden Globe nominations and potential Oscar buzz. But you've probably heard of the film I'm talking about today, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Oh, it has the award talk circling it too, but is a far more high-profile effort.

This is an adaptation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, a love story about a man born with all the physical impairments of extreme old age, who goes through his life "backwards," growing younger with each passing year. Starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and directed by the whip-cracking perfectionist of our day, David Fincher, this is a very good movie. But it's not a "great" one.

I found, oddly enough, that the technical wizardry involved in telling this story actually got in the way. I certainly would have expected that the more sophisticated and seamless that visual effects become, the more they could support grander and grander tales without dominating the proceedings. This movie now leads me to think the opposite may be true -- at least, to someone like me who really enjoys the behind-the-scenes aspect of making movies.

Put simply, the first hour of this movie is one long "how the hell did they do that?" Well... I believe "how they did that" is to film scenes with shorter actors wearing a blue- or green-screen hood, then use effects to blend in footage of Brad Pitt's head (in old age makeup) shot separately. But it's really brilliant work, absolutely flawless. It's a triumph of both visual effects and makeup effects. And if you're one of those people who sees a magician perform and isn't wowed by the illusion, but instead struggles to decipher how it is done, this part of the movie will drive you absolutely nuts. I simply wasn't able to give myself over to the story for long, striving to see where the "mirrors" and "trap doors" were. (I should note that perhaps even more impressive are the techniques used to make Cate Blanchett appear younger as she first appears in the film, techniques used to an even greater extent near the end to create a younger Brad Pitt. Again, incredible stuff.)

Eventually, though, the film does reach a point where the computer-assisted wizardry ends. Brad Pitt simply wears the more traditional kind of makeup we've seen in countless other films, and I found myself finally able to let my brain go enough to enjoy the film without interrupting itself every few minutes.

At that point, the tale takes on an almost Forrest Gump kind of vibe, though mercifully without all the disingenuous falsehoods that I find in that famous Tom Hanks movie. Benjamin Button has a few adventures out in the world that are entertaining and clever, but ultimately things work back around to meat of the tale -- the love story between his character and Cate Blanchett's.

The greatest "special effect" of all in this film is the acting of Cate Blanchett. It is she who has all the "heavy lifting" in this film, so to speak. She plays every extremity of age that Brad Pitt plays in the film, but it is her character who is more forced to cope with the reality of what Benjamin's unusual life is. All this, and her character has a moving arc of her own, in which she discovers what she wants to do with her life, but has it prematurely taken away from her. She must also frame the tale as an old woman dying in the hospital, unspooling the entire story to her daughter. And there's never a single beat that feels false. It is another incredible performance from an incredible actor, and deserving of any award nominations it gets.

But ultimately, the script lets everyone down just a bit. Maybe I'm overly critical, having just seen a movie like Doubt, that gets everything right. This script isn't nearly so polished. One problem is the incredible length. Yes, we are being told the entire life story, from birth to death, of a person, but the fact remains that there are moments that drag in the 2 hour, 45 minute proceedings. Some bits should have been cleared away. The best emotional content of the film (and there is good stuff there) doesn't really come into play until the film is half over.

And yet, at the same time, the movie also misses a few grand opportunities. I'll give a specific example here, and ask those who want to see this movie without being spoiled to skip on to the next paragraph. There is a running metaphor in the piece about a clock that runs backwards. The final scene of the movie shows the clock now taken down, still running backward as flood waters pour into the storage area where it rests. It seems to me that the correct ending for this film is to have the waters rush the clock and cause it to stop. And yet, the ending is "fade to black" on the still ticking clock. I can't believe a director that so strives for perfection could have missed a moment like that.

Overall, this is certainly a movie worth seeing. But you will have to clear out a rather lengthy portion of your day to do so, and you may wonder at moments during the film just why it had to be so long. I give The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a B+.