Filmography
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I honestly put off watching this because I wasn’t at all sure how I was going to find it. I was a bit unnerved by the original trailers, and I will admit that I approached it generally with a great deal of trepidation. However, I’m delighted to say that it is actually a bloody good film, albeit a bit of a tear-jerker.
If you’ve not come across the plot, Benjamin Button is born backwards; he’s born into a body that suffers the pains of old age, and dies as a newborn infant. However, his mind works the right way around, even if his body doesn’t. His story is told through his diaries, postcards and sundry other memorabilia, read through by the woman who we discover is his daughter to Daisy, her mother and his lover, as Daisy lies in bed dying from cancer during Hurricane Katrina. It sounds like a slightly cheesy setting, but actually, it works surprisingly well; the plot is located primarily in the New Orleans area, and the flooding of the city by Katrina actually feels like an appropriate ending to the story. Mainly because it’s not heavily overplayed or milked for pathos; it’s there as background to the epic story that’s evolving, not as a distraction.
I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by Brad Pitt in the film; I hadn’t expected to be, and yet his acting and Cate Blanchett’s acting as the young(er) Daisy was incredibly good. There was a pathos and a tenderness to the whole film, in terms of meditation both on human mortality and the nature of human relationships, that made it very powerful to watch. There always seemed something understated about it, especially the way that people reacted to or were informed about Benjamin’s peculiar circumstances; it was more interested in exploring the consequences instead of dwelling on what one might call the freakshow side of the affair. Plus the film had an ambitious span - it went from birth to death, covering a whole lifespan, and doing so in an interesting and meaningful way. There was something about the ordinariness of those experiences too - despite Daisy’s skill as a dancer and Benjamin’s condition, ultimately their stories were told in a way that incorporated all the day to day things that happen in a life - moving house, decorating, perhaps starting a small business, having a child, travelling… All present, all meaningful, and meaning found in ways which did not rely on the specialness of Benjamin.
It’s a story of human experience, of what it is to live and love and lose. The curious circumstances of Benjamin Button are ultimately only the excuse to tell it.
I honestly put off watching this because I wasn’t at all sure how I was going to find it. I was a bit unnerved by the original trailers, and I will admit that I approached it generally with a great deal of trepidation. However, I’m delighted to say that it is actually a bloody good film, albeit a bit of a tear-jerker.
If you’ve not come across the plot, Benjamin Button is born backwards; he’s born into a body that suffers the pains of old age, and dies as a newborn infant. However, his mind works the right way around, even if his body doesn’t. His story is told through his diaries, postcards and sundry other memorabilia, read through by the woman who we discover is his daughter to Daisy, her mother and his lover, as Daisy lies in bed dying from cancer during Hurricane Katrina. It sounds like a slightly cheesy setting, but actually, it works surprisingly well; the plot is located primarily in the New Orleans area, and the flooding of the city by Katrina actually feels like an appropriate ending to the story. Mainly because it’s not heavily overplayed or milked for pathos; it’s there as background to the epic story that’s evolving, not as a distraction.
I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by Brad Pitt in the film; I hadn’t expected to be, and yet his acting and Cate Blanchett’s acting as the young(er) Daisy was incredibly good. There was a pathos and a tenderness to the whole film, in terms of meditation both on human mortality and the nature of human relationships, that made it very powerful to watch. There always seemed something understated about it, especially the way that people reacted to or were informed about Benjamin’s peculiar circumstances; it was more interested in exploring the consequences instead of dwelling on what one might call the freakshow side of the affair. Plus the film had an ambitious span - it went from birth to death, covering a whole lifespan, and doing so in an interesting and meaningful way. There was something about the ordinariness of those experiences too - despite Daisy’s skill as a dancer and Benjamin’s condition, ultimately their stories were told in a way that incorporated all the day to day things that happen in a life - moving house, decorating, perhaps starting a small business, having a child, travelling… All present, all meaningful, and meaning found in ways which did not rely on the specialness of Benjamin.
It’s a story of human experience, of what it is to live and love and lose. The curious circumstances of Benjamin Button are ultimately only the excuse to tell it.