Curiously Uninteresting

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button isn't too much of a curiosity. It's the same old period drama that's been told on film dozens of times. Let us recap, shall we? Boy is born, boy is abandoned by family, boy grows up with foster parents, boy meets girl, boy goes off to see the world, boy comes back to find girl, girl initially rejects boy, girl finally comes to find the boy and they live happily ever after and then both of them die. Sound curiously familiar? That's because it is.

Taking away the well worn plot, the only novelty in the movie is the curious Benjamin Button himself, primarily the fact that he was born an old man who grows younger as he ages. The gimmick might have been useful if the film makers had done something interesting with it, but they don't. They don't use it to explore something deeper, say for example, what it reveals about people when they react to Button. Unfortunately, most people in the movie seem to be oblivious to his condition, except the love of his life, Daisy (played by an utterly wasted Cate Blanchett). His father abandons him at birth and seems to regret that later and that's about it. Neither does the film explore (beyond the superficial) what it means for Button to be growing younger in a world that is relentlessly growing older. Also, Button is played by the terminally mediocre Brad Pitt, who also provides no curious insights into his character, not that the screenplay helps him in the least.

So what remains is the spectacle of Button going through the 20th century aided by some fantastic make-up work and gorgeous cinematography which was curiously unmoving, to say the least. There were only a couple of parts that made me feel for the characters and shook me out of my boredom. The first was when Benjamin and Daisy go through their short lived and doomed romance. The other parts were the scenes with Daisy on her deathbed with her daughter by her side, caught in New Orleans just before Katrina came and knocked most of the city down. By the end, I was wishing they would spend some time exploring the second story line while the times it was just Benjamin, I was wishing it would just move along quicker.

So in the end, it's mostly another superficial period drama that Hollywood churns out regularly and then the Academy falls over itself to lavish with awards. Three hours of your life are probably better spent elsewhere. Blah.

5/10