The Benjamin Button Debate

So I felt I had to weigh in on the argument currently at the forefront of movie awards season: Is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button good or terrible?  Because if you’re like me, you’ve heard it both ways, and rarely in between.  People either rave or rant, love or loathe, when it comes to this film from director David Fincher.  And finally last night, I saw the movie in its 3 hours of glory and can finally put in my own two cents.  So, did I love it or hate it?

Well, neither.  For me, Ben Button ran straight down the middle.  There were aspects of it I really liked, and some I really didn’t.  When I watch a movie, read a book or see a play, with or without a critical eye, one of the central questions I ask of the work is “Do the elements introduced exists purely the serve and enhance the story being told, or do they exist as an directorial/literary/artistic flourish?”  95% of the time (there are always exceptions), we seek out film and theater out of our human thirst for a good story.  We want to be transported to far off places, introduced to fascinating people, thrown into unexpected circumstances.  And unless you’re watching an Andy Warhol pop art film or something, the foundation upon which all the movie’s elements are built is story. The greatest works of entertainment are ones that embrace this notion of story to its core– every single aspect of the work exists solely to support the thrust of the story being told.

This brief intro out of the way, I can say that with that young Button, I was engrossed by the main story, but very put off by anything that felt like it came from David Fincher or Eric Roth and was not organically drawn from the tale.  The examples are easy to site: the purely symbolic story of Mr. K and his clock, the superfluous appearance of Hurricane Katrina, the lengthy “All these little things needed to happen for Cate Blanchett to get hit by a car” sequence.  These additions felt like, well, additions.  They felt tacked on by the filmmakers to make their film more filmy.  What did these things really have to do with the curious case of Benny Button?  Loosely connected symbolism, pretentious quirkiness, and political statements do not a movie make.  

Other things that bugged me: The narration was horribly inconsistent and shifted depending on whatever a particular scene called for.  For instance, when it comes to the Coincidence Sequence (a.k.a. We Stole This From Sliding Doors and 100 other movies), Ben Button’s narration all of a sudden becomes omniscient– where until this point, he was only narrating his own life and experience, he is suddenly able to tell us about a girl with a broken shoe lace, a late delivery truck, and a cab driver on his coffee break.  This choice is a perfect example of something being forced onto the story, rather than being drawn naturally from it.

Also, I didn’t like the whole tugboat in the war thing.  Not because I have anything against war or tugboats, but because it wasn’t given any emotional significance at all.  First of all, you’ve got these guys all signing up to go to war and dying for a cause they speak nothing about — why did these men all volunteer to go from carrying cargo to fighting submarines?  What did they give their lives for?  Second, why was nothing made of the fact that Mr. Button cowered behind the boat, weaponless, while his shipmates were all killed in battle while trying to shoot Germans?  I’d say that ranks up there as pretty damn cowardly– and yet this was not acknowledged or explained in the least.  Most importantly, the war didn’t seem to have any real ramifications for Button at all. His outlook on life was much the same, he was never haunted by or reminded of his experiences — so what was the point?  Were they just going down the Forrest Gump checklist?  ”Drunk sea captain?  Check.  Retarded-sounding southern accent?  Check.  War scene?  Uh, sure, yeah, we can do that.”

Speaking of Forrest Gump, you’ve doubtless realized that by now that Button is essentially a worse Forest Gump.  The comparison list could go on and on for pages (here’s a pretty good one), from the feather/hummingbird visual metaphor to the sudden wealth of Apple stock/button factory, to Jenny/Daisy.  And here’s another Gump-like facet of Button that I really didn’t like: what was the deal with the meaningless bits of advice dropped on Ben Button by the adults in his life?  From his mother Queenie, he gets “You never know what’s coming for you.”  Profound.  All kinds of empty quotes about life and death were dropped throughout the movie…

…which leads me to my final point against young Button, and hammers home why Forrest Gump is about 1000 times better than this movie could ever be: where Forrest Gump was a rich, patient exploration and examination into the amazing life of a man, and the relationships and events that made him who he was, Button is just the series of events; its as if the man himself isn’t nearly as important as the stuff that happen to him.  What was the significance of anything?  What was the moral of the story, that time passes?  Do we really know what kind of man Benjamin Button is or what he does the things he does?  In fact, other than live, what does Benjamin Button really do?  Whose lives does he change?  He obviously has a large impact on Daisy, (though that’s never really explored in a meaningful way either — we just accept that they love each other from the get-go and that’s that), but other than that, what impact does he make on anything or anyone?  How did his aging backwards really affect him or those around him, other than causing some  misunderstandings?  What were his motivations, his stakes?  I suppose you could argue that the sole thing driving Ben was his quest simply to live his life fully, but that doesn’t really feel like a strong motivation to me, let alone an epic movie.

Ok, so though it sounds like I’m totally panning this movie, there were some elements I really liked.  First and foremost, Cate Blanchett.  Wow.  With this performance, she has solidified her place in my heart as my favorite actress working today (she’s officially dethroned Kate Winslet, thanks partly due to Winslet’s lame though shockingly lauded turn in The Reader).  She is, as Ben B. himself says, absolutely mesmerizing.  Any time she was on the screen, I could not take my eyes off her.  While part of this due to the radiant glow of her red hair, porcelain skin and gorgeous blue eyes (we can thank DP Claudio Miranda for that), most of it is due to her unending grace, her ability to add gravitas to any scene or moment without weighing it down, and the ease and fluidity with which she floats through the movie at all ages.  Her dancing scenes were a pure delight to behold — her languid movement, the bright colors of her dresses and hair– she was the personification of beauty.  I also really loved Tilda Swinton in this movie — she was perfect for the role and just knocked it out of the park.  She looked pretty darn gorgeous herself too, which is not something you can always say about Tilda Swinton.  Taraji P. Henson was also quite good as Queenie, though her role was incredibly marginalized after the film’s first hour.  

I thought Brad Pitt was fine, but he didn’t really have much to do.  Yes, he had to act old and talk in Adam Sandler’s Waterboy accent, but those are character trappings, not drama.  What were his big dramatic moments?  What were the big sacrifices and choices he made in his life, other than the end?  Yes, he left the love of his life and his daughter, but seemingly did so without so much as a pause or mention of pain.  Hearing of pain through yearly postcards while we see how much fun he’s having riding his motorcycle around doesn’t really count. 

In conclusion, I’d like to point out another large issue I had with this film, the resolution of which might’ve given us a more complete and affecting movie.  Was this a magical, fairy tale in a world that parallels our own but could never truly exist?  Or was this a series of really strange occurrences in the real world?  Rather than choose one path and go for it, Fincher and Roth try to tow a middle line, and in this respect, I think they fail to take this story to its full potential.  For my money, I wish they would’ve gone 100% fairy tale.  Get rid of the Katrina crap, (I’ve heard we have Brad Pitt to thank for that.  Everyone thinks he’s a director.   Yeesh.), give us more magic like a hummingbird out at sea, which while annoying and out of place in this context, would’ve fit perfectly in a more Tim Burton’s Big Fish type world (which is more the tone I think they should’ve gone for here).  

So do I recommend this movie?  Yes.  I urge you to see it so that you can draw your own opinion.  Try not to think of Forrest Gump, (God knows that’s a tall order), and try to embrace this movie on its own terms.  Either it’ll hit home with you, or it won’t, but at the very least, you’ll be watching a highly cinematic adventure on a grand scale not often tackled by filmmakers, full of wonderful actors, which is a rewarding and rare enough experience to fully enjoy in its own right.

Grade: B