Growing Younger the Long Way (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (DVD))

Member Name: Puggers

Product:	The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (DVD)
Date:	12/02/09 (176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong performaces, real emotional impact

Disadvantages: Far, far too long

Somewhere in the midst of this film, our protagonists, Benjamin and Daisy are just like any other couple. Daisy (Cate Blanchett) is a dance teacher, Benjamin (Brad Pitt) the inheritor of a button empire fortune; the pair have just bought their own house and spend hours watching TV and generally enjoying each other's company. This, though, is just a snapshot of a moment - and it tells very little of their true story. The pair first met when Benjamin was in his late seventies and Daisy was eight. Born into the body of an old man, Benjamin is growing younger by the day, meaning the pair's ages have been slowly converging until these few years in the sixties when their life-clocks join up, each in their early forties.

Both know, however, that while this brief window has given them a long-awaited opportunity to be together, time will gradually pull them apart once more. As Daisy grows older, the years will fall away from Benjamin, he will become a young man, then a child, and she will leave him behind.

The film narrates all aspects and periods of Benjamin's life, from the "curious circumstances" of his birth, through his "youth" in an old people's home, via war and personal discovery and back to Daisy. However, the couple's struggle against the inevitable advance of time is the heart of the movie, the constant pull and the theme that we return to in its many forms again and again. This relationship often seems to be one of the few stable things that Benjamin can cling onto whilst all around him changes.

This being the case, it is odd that it takes quite so long for the film to get around to narrating the key period of their relationship, this aforementioned window in which they can believe they are normal people destined to grow old together, rather than two individuals completely helpless in the face of time, unable to stop what they know awaits them. Although most of what goes before is largely speaking relevant to the plot, and certainly adds more depth to our understanding of what makes up Benjamin Button, it is asking a lot of an audience to wait getting on for two hours before the film really gets going.

I say "most" of the film prior to these key scenes is relevant - some I really don't think is. In a film heading for three hours in length, I feel it is hard to justify a couple of episodes which add precious little to the movie except time. At somewhere around twenty minutes long, the scenes in which Benjamin meets and embarks upon a relationship with Tilda Swinton's character (about whom it is necessary to say little, for while she is well-acted, adds little to the plot) feel excessive. The war scenes are better; introducing more memorable characters and bringing something more in terms of Benjamin's makeup, but overall I felt something had to give. Doubtless the producers were reluctant to cut sections out that are fine in themselves, but I think there is plenty here which could have been left to the imagination of the audience; we are constantly shown what we probably could have filled in ourselves without losing anything. Chopping half an hour or so off this film simply would have made it a much smoother, more enjoyable and watchable experience.

On the up-side, the performances here are excellent - if any part of the film merits the various awards nominations it has accrued, it has to be the efforts of the actors, especially the leads. Pitt and Blanchett both put in strong, powerful performances, and really lend presence to their scenes, lighting up the screen with turns that are in turns emotive, amusing and engaging, yet always measured - they never over-do the emotion that is already inherent in the plot. Their presences on the screen are perfectly balanced, and lend the film a genuine sense of integrity.

The plot is strongly put together and well conveyed on the whole, if it is a little stretched out by the length of the film, meaning its best scenes and moments are somewhat isolated, and aren't really able to link up together and give the film a sense of cohesion and flow which would have improved it. The story is very effectively brought across, however, and certainly achieves the twanging of the heartstrings it would have been looking for. Would a more concise film have given it even greater punch, and transformed it from a good film into a great one? It's hard to say, but it's tempting to feel that The Curious Case ... would have benefitted from being a rather neater, slimmed-down entity. I can't say as I'm a fan of the apparent assumption that for a film to be great, it has to be long - I think there's greater skill in making an impact in a shorter space of time than there is in filming a hulking great leviathan of a movie filled with everything you could possibly conceive of for the story and expecting people to sit through it. I admired the film, certainly - it's well acted, impressively shot and frequently touching - but thanks to the aches in my knees and long-haul fuzziness that comes from over three hours in a cramped cinema, I can't say that I enjoyed it. Put this film on a diet, and you've probably got a fine movie.

Summary: The life story of a man living his time out backwards, and his impact on the world around him.