Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The next movie I saw over the holidays was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  I had been intrigued by this movie ever since I heard it was coming out, and was both surprised and not surprised at how much I ended up liking it.  Surprised because I don't generally like Brad Pitt (as an actor...of course I've always loved to look at him), and not surprised because the plot really is an interesting concept.  The film is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I have not read the it, but intend to do so as soon as possible.

Benjamin Button is born an old man, and gets progressively younger looking as he literally ages.  The story centres around his relationship with a Daisy, a childhood friend who turns into a lover.  Inevitably, their love is thwarted, but not destroyed, by their reverse aging processes.  The story does an excellent job of pulling viewers in and making them genuinely interested in what happens to the characters.  There's a lot of Forrest Gump-style cheese but hey, I like Forrest Gump.  (Although I could have done without the one cheese-tacular tear-jerking montage at the end.  It jerked my tears all right but was altogether far too close to the end of the movie.  I had to walk out of the theatre with tears in my eyes.  That hasn't happened since The Notebook!).  

Now to my favourite thing about this movie:  Cate Blanchett.  The woman deserves her own paragraph.  I believed her as Elizabeth I, as Katharine Hepburn, as a young, confused art teacher, as a traveling American heiress...  I feel like I'm forgetting some really important roles...insert your favourite Cate Blanchett character here.  Anyway, she's equally brilliant in this film, and so beautiful too.  She plays a dancer, and by the end of the movie I had resolved to be more graceful and pixie-like in everything I do.  So far it hasn't worked out very well, but I'm working on it.  The next time you see me, I will appear to be floating, believe you me.

(In case you can't tell, am feeling a little loopy right now.  Have taken some Nyquil to try and fight off this awful cold that has kept me from writing these past few days, and it's started to kick in....