The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Theatre) - Both

David Fincher is known for making dark films – Fight Club (1999), Se7en (1995), Zodiac (2007) these are all rather pessimistic movies that don’t really celebrate the human endeavor – even Panic Room is darker than most cinema fair. However, Fincher’s latest effort is close to the exact opposite. It has the light charm and sullied optimism of Forrest Gump (1994), and that isn’t the last reference to that film I will make here.

Fincher's touch isn’t as heavy handed as it has been in the past, there are no scoping shots parsing rooms out as action takes place, but as the director grows older his touch with the scissors seems to be waning. While Zodiac came to 158 minutes Button runs the marathon of 166 minutes. And there are numerable scenes that could have found a home on the editing room floor.

To give you an example – the wrapper was a waist of emotion, money, and time. We see Daisy, the central female protagonist, as an old woman slowly dying has hurricane Katrina threatens to strike New Orleans. Why Katrina needed to be thrown into this film, I will never know. Her daughter reads to her the diary that Benjamin has left behind as she, Daisy, dies. This mirrors Forrest Gump’s wrapper in that the audience is constantly drawn out of the story by the two individuals telling it to rehash the information learned. Additionally, we get the emotional dead weight of a daughter finding out that her father is clearly not who she thought it was, but as she finds out through the diary, he was a curious man who happens to age backwards. The wrapper could have never been in the story and the film would have been the same.

The love story in the film also mirrors Gump in its breadth and scope. We are lead to believe that the two main characters fell in love when they were both around the age of ten. This means that we need to believe that a ten year old girl fell for, what looked like, a seventy year old man. An odd concept, I know. And much like Gump, the love isn’t really kindled until much later. They are torn apart and brought together on several occasions, all the while one is growing older and the other younger.

Now, it seems like I’m down on this film. I’m not. In fact, when walking to the car with my wife I exclaimed that I enjoyed this film more than Slumdog Millionaire (2008). But I find that while I thought the film was a subtle epic, which played its cards at just the right moment, it doesn’t stay fresh as I turn its central themes around in my head.

I continue to believe that I loved this film while watching, I love a good epic. They seem so grand. But epics, even Forrest Gump, my favorite, don’t always maintain their luster when taken away from the viewing experience. I’m not sure why. Maybe, it has to do with the fact that you are no longer having to buy each and every coincidence. Maybe, it has to do with the fact that our lives never mirror the majestic highs, lows, or battles that appear in the individual’s life. I’m not sure. But, I can’t think of an epic that stays epic after the theatre.

7 out of 10 – an epic piece of cinema that tries its hardest to maintain the paces it sets for itself.