Kills Me Dead

Saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button on Boxing Day with Theresa.

1. I know it’s a conceit made because there’s no other way his mother could have given birth to him, but if Benjamin is born as an old man why is he the size of a newborn? I know people shrink as they age, but no one reverts to infant size.
2. I liked how buttons were used to make out the logos of the movie studios, but other than that I thought the whole button thing was underused. Benjamin’s last name is fun, you see, because his biological father owned a place called Button’s Buttons! How whimsical! Except for the fact that this isn’t relevant on any level. Pa Button leaves the family biz to Benjamin upon his death, having revealed himself as Benjamin’s father slightly earlier. The button factory is then not spoken of again until Benjamin needs to sell it to make some quick and bountiful cash to give to Daisy, the mother of his child who he is leaving because obviously their relationship will never work out.
3. I think the movie presents the parallels between youth and old age fairly well, even the physical/mental reversal makes it disconcerting to see such naivete in an old person’s body or such absolutely alarming dementia in a child’s body.
4. I really like Tilda Swinton. She was great in the news snippet at the end after she swam the English Channel.
5. Super airbrushed young!Brad Pitt was kind of hilarious. Regular this-is-actually-my-current-age-in-real-life Brad Pitt was kind of hot. Also, the whole Marlon Brando / James Dean thing on the motorcycle is unfair to straight female and gay male audiences because it’s so easy and so effective.
6. Speaking of which, I’m about 90% sure that nothing in this story would have panned out if Benjamin had un-aged into an ugly younger man. Benjamin is very lucky that he looks like Brad Pitt.
7. Cate Blanchett is luminous and wonderful, although I could have done without her deathbed scenes. She’s far more likable in the second half of the film than she is in the first, which I suppose is necessary in a movie where maturing in one way or another is central to the story. Some of the make-up used to age her alternated between making her look like a drag queen or the post-Mace Windu battle royale Emperor from Star Wars, which was kind of upsetting. I wonder how much of the dancing she actually did herself.
8. The aesthetics are A+. Ten points to the DP, art directors, and whoever else is involved with making things look the way they do.
9. I really could have done without the unnecessary Hurricane Katrina subplot.
10. The best IMDB forum thread title spawned by this movie has got to be “The Curious Case of Wanting My money back…..”
11. There’s something weirdly unmemorable about this movie. It didn’t stay with me or keep me thinking about it. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel moved by it.