OLD DUDE turns YOUNG DUDE in

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON -2008
(A CURIOUS FLICK INDEED)

Genre: Drama
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett



Ahem…Now where was I...Ahhh yes...Now that I’ve recovered from the emotional maelstrom that has plagued my mind since my watch of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, I will begin a highly opinionated ‘review’ of the same.

It all starts in 1918, in New Orleans, Louisiana (reminiscent of that formidable monstress Katrina), where a little baby boy is born to a white couple, the Button family. Sadly, the mother dies in labour. Thinking that solace could be found in his offspring, the father receives the baby from the nurse’s arms, only to find that a grandpa is staring back at him from beneath the blanket folds! That’s right folks. The little baby has a body and face that could probably be carbon-dated to a century! Arteries clogged and wrinkled skin, and eyes with cataract, this poor baby appears chimerical to his father, who immediately runs away from his house, into the cold night…thinking to get rid of it.

After failing to drown the baby in the local canal (caught red-handed by the guard there), he flees away and sneaks up to an old age home…and leaves the “old baby” (pardon the oxymoron) at the bottom step.

A young African-American woman working there, with a much warmer heart than Button, kindly adopts the baby as her own, and christens him as “Benjamin”.

Time passes by and Benjamin “grows down” into an old man, confined to a wheelchair. The other occupants of the old age home are good buddies. He grows younger day-by-day and soon ditches the wheelchair.

He finds a kind friend in Daisy, a young girl about his age (or younger), and they share stories, and play. Daisy is the granddaughter of one of the grandmas at the old age home.

From here on I’m going to skip a lot, and give you a brief gist.

Benjamin grows younger, and I’m surmising in his seventies (oops I mean …ummm…teens?), he joins a small ferry at the harbor for work.
At some point the “evil father” meets him, recognizes him, and befriends him. Its quite obvious that he inwardly repents heartlessly giving up on his son, but he keep’s his fatherhood a secret from Benjamin.

Benjamin travels around the world in the ship and grows younger. He and Daisy write to each other from time to time. His travels include episodes of Pearl Harbor warfare.


Eventually, Daisy (played by Cate Blanchett) becomes a professional ballet dancer. Exactly, when these two fall in love I don’t know…or maybe they were soul-mates to start with?

After his travels Benjamin goes back to his foster mother and the old age home, and works there .The father informs Benjamin that he is his son and heir, and leaves him all his property at death( this would include a button factory…..me surmises that there is NO link between button factory and surname).

Brad Pitt is finally beginning to look like himself again.

Daisy meets with an accident that finishes her ballet career, and returns to New Orleans. They marry, and have a daughter. Daisy opens a ballet school.

Younger by the minute, Benjamin (probably assuming that he may soon vanish into thin air) feels that he will only be burden to his wife (not to mention that it isn’t often that fathers are younger than their daughters).

He leaves his property to them and leaves them. Daisy remarries.

Eventually, he is found as a small boy with a memory loss, and is taken in by his deceased foster mother’s daughter and their family.

Daisy, old and gray, visits him, and takes affectionate care of the little boy, who eventually dies a baby, in her arms.


Benjamin’s lifetime spans over eight decades, and direction can be lauded in the aspect that Benjamin’s tale is a window into America’s being, from USA-1918 to USA-2000’s.

This story, in my opinion, was well presented, and I can’t say I had any sort of melancholic feeling after I had watched the movie. To me, it was but the narration of the birth, and lifetime, of a human being, having a unique, and serious issue, watching people he knows age, as he himself grows younger.


Take a bite of Oscar award-winning “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”… It leaves a ‘curious’ taste.


Things to think about:

After the World War I, a blind clock-maker who had lost his beloved son in the war, unveils a clock at the local train station. This clock runs backwards you see. He explains that this ‘error’ was quite intentional, as he believes that time will reverse itself and those who lost their lives in the war will return to life (though I think the poor man just made a simple mistake, being quite blind as a bat and all).

Shortly afterwards, Benjamin is born…and voila…he’s running through life backwards!

Hmmm…curious.