I have finally seen my first film for the new year. 2008's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which got thirteen Oscar nominations, and has divided opinions... As usual, some love it, some hate it. I'm in between.
It's a loose adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story. Three hours long, and leisurely. It doesn't make you sit up and take notice with the opening shot, rather it slowly draws you in, if you've got time and patience.
The story is bracketed by two women, elderly Daisy (Cate Blanchett) and her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond), who's with her on her deathbed in New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina closes in. Daisy insists her daughter read a journal, the life story of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), a man who was born old and aged backwards.
First, the setting and cinematography, the style and effects used to age the characters, are all stunning. Visually the film is a lovely watch. The script, especially in the early part of the film, has many a strong line and the characters, again in the early part, are very compelling.
It starts as magic realism of a sort. Nobody treats Benjamin like he's truly abnormal. Outside of his adopted family, I'm not sure anybody else even cottons on to his "case." It added a dreamlike, surreal quality to the work, which I quite liked.
However, in the long run, no amount of artistic tones will endear me to films that run off course down the road, and that is exactly what I feel happened here.
When Benjamin is a boy, growing up in a nursing home, there's a sense of love and sorrow all mixed up. There's a contrast between the little girl Daisy and the elderly people he'd known until then. Characters come and go, and all are dynamic creations, from Queenie to the sea captain. Elisabeth (Tilda Swinton) being the standout. I don't know why, but her romance with Benjamin completely overshadowed his later one with Daisy. Perhaps it was because they really seemed to listen to each other (or at least, we got to see them talk). Perhaps because neither was as drop-dead gorgeous as the later paring. Or maybe just because I prefer Murmansk to whatever warm place he and Daisy hung out at.
The problems come after the moving sea battle. At this point, all the previous characters are gone, or relegated to bit players. It's all about Ben and Daisy now. Their relationship, after various starts and stops, finally smoothes out into an ideal. Love on both sides. Then Daisy reveals she's going to have a baby. And the cracks start to appear...
Here be SPOILERS
It is at this point that I found the story turned soulless, and I lost my enjoyment of the tale. Instead of anything admirable, Brad Pitt (who I stopped thinking of as Benjamin here, because he just looked too much like himself) turns tail and runs. Instead of accepting his disability and the fact that we all grow old and die, instead of staying with a woman who loves him that much and helping to raise his daughter, cherishing that which is so dear to him, he just ups and walks away. Then he bellyaches about how he wished he could have been there for Caroline, as if something prevented that other than his own choice.
In the end, overviewing the film, I can't like Benjamin very much. He seemed emotionally stunted, especially given the film's coda, where he sums up everyone he's known in one line: "artist, Shakespeare buff, mother, dancer, swimmer, etc." That just seemed unforegivably cold of him. You can't sum a dear person up in one line! One word! People are more than their main interest. I hope when I die, someone will think of me as more than a "reader."
He was always a very reserved main character. But in this last chapter, he seemed, and the script seemed, to lose so much of what feeling they'd previously had. And it being so long, so much time being invested, I just felt cheated by how it chose to conclude.
Perhaps I wasn't in the mood. Perhaps rewatching it would make me appreciate it more fully. I don't know. I found it depressing. And not in a cathartic way. I'm not sorry I watched it, but my opinion of it is decidely mixed. The title of this post is what I identified as the main theme of the work. They shouldn't have billed it as a romance, really. That's the trouble. But the billing sells better. Oh well.
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It's interesting how differently we see things as people and that is how it should be.
ReplyDeleteFor me the whole film is about love and loss and how people come and go through various stages in your life, bringing with them new experiences and lessons that help shape who we are. I suppose how we have experienced such things also shape how we view the film and the characters in it.
It is essentially a depressing film and, I felt, quite heavy emotionally. But this is meant to be as Benjamin goes through life, as we all do unfortunately, losing people along the way.
For me, the final chapters were some of the heartrending. I found Benjamin's choice of leaving very difficult but could see why he did this. I suppose it can be compared to when people get old, some say they don't wish to be a burden on family, whilst others feel family should care for them until death.
I think Benjamin fell into the latter and I do wonder how things would have turned out when he was suffering from dementia as a young boy. How Daisy and their young child would have managed as he grew young, failed to know who they were. For me, having had experience knowing people with dementia and how there comes a time where they fail to recognise you or familiar places, this was very a very sad part of the film. It was, in effect, like a person diagnosed with dementia saying in their early stages 'I don't want to put you through this' and leaving. I think that is what Benjamin was thinking...maybe.
As for the coda, to me that was quite striking. I saw it not as Benjamin summing people up in one word, but as him giving them the titles they so craved. The captain always wanted to be an artist but was never allowed this opportunity, Benjamin saw him for what he wanted to be seen as an 'artist'. The same goes for Daisy 'Dancer'. I would be hugely complimented if I was to be seen as (or can be seen as) a 'photographer'.
Again, though, it is very much each to their own and that is as it should be! Sorry you found the film depressing it was a very heavy film that way and, I suppose, it was meant to be.
A great comedy to watch next!
I think the idea that as you get old you loose control and essentially turn back into a baby was spot on, babies are not the main character really because they don't have the limelight and full personality of a vibrant 20 something or 30 something. I think the way the story wound down and ended was exactly what happens with people. His aging backwards was just a different sort of disease and not the main story. In the end it's a very apt tale of the human condition. It's how our lives evolve and play out and a very 'true' sort of telling for all its being wrapped up in a bizarre story, it wasn't bizarre at all.
ReplyDeleteMirror Mask struck me as much the same, a 'true' telling in a bizarre landscape. Good stories in my book. Depressing yeah, and not always how you'd like to see it go, but I certainly didn't feel as though I'd wasted my time watching Benjamin Button.