Lack of curiousity bores the cat…..
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON by DAVID FINCHER
I’m glad it’s over. Seriously am. Before watching the film, itself I did have questions in my mind regarding the portrayal of Benjamin Button. Now I feel what the fuss was all about.
BB is born old. So its said. Physically he is entrapped in the body of a new-born. His characteristics are that of an old man. As the doctor who examines him says, here is a baby born with cataracts, severe arthritis, wrinkled skin and well on his way to the grave. Is he curious about how any human baby can be born this way? No. He’s more worried about the oldage home could afford another mouth to feed.
The baby is actually born to a wealthy couple. Mother dies during childbirth. Father, unable to see his grotesque looking boy abandons he child at the doorstep of the oldage home. Queenie, the keeper, finds it and decides to keep it. As she says, “you sure as ugly as an old pot but you still are a child of God”. And so it comes to be. She just finds him ugly. That’s all. When the doctor tells her the baby is actually like an eighty year old is she flummoxed? No. She just adopts him. And so, Benjamin is born.
But I wanted to know. To know how all of them – the parents, the doctor at the family house, Queenie, the doctor here – all just went along. No one felt anything highly abnormal about this. Surprising.
Cut to few years later. Benjamin is about 7 years old. But he looks less old than before. He is about 2 feet tall, wheelchair bound, bald, spectacled, wrinkled. An old man. He is considered one among them. The old inmates. All going smooth.
He slowly learns to walk. With Crutches. Then a walking stick. Then his legs. Time passes. Benjamin makes some friends with the old inmates. Goes out with them. Sees new places, and different people. Meets a young girl Daisy at his home once. An inmate’s grand-daughter. Love takes form and that becomes the backbone of the plot.
What happens all through the next many years is just a time-line that David Fincher offers us. Whatever Benjamin does, wherever he goes, whoever he meets its all smooth-sailing. In his early twenties, he’s at sea on ‘Tugboat’ for a few years with captain Mike. Travels the world. Writes to Daisy. Comes back home. Older by age and experience. Younger in body. No matter how his body grew and matured, his mind was on the normal track. Benjamin wasn’t born senile as an old man. As he says, when seven, “I always had a healthy curiosity”. Just like a child does, I thought.
By this time, I, frankly, was very bored. There was no story being told. So naturally I began to care less and less. About him, about his love, about his mother. About the film. It was just dragging on. But yet had an hour more to go. Well, if by hundred or so odd minutes nothing much was happening, I didn’t expect more. But had free time so continued.
Benjamin comes home only to find his ailing biological father coming back to reconcile with him. His love story with Daisy also takes precedence and this forms the rest of the “plot” (for the lack of a better word now). Nothing much more. Once the father track is done with, Benjamin follows Daisy, an accomplished ballet dancer now. What happens then. See it, but by then, you can guess what’s next. It’s only Benjamin who time and again wonders how he is growing in the opposite direction. Not that it disturbs him. All the people around him seem to just let it pass. They feel him to be “different”. A label that’s stuck thereby defining their interactions with him. Reminded me of something already seen before.
So what is unique about this plot then? About the premise of growing younger as a number adds on to your age each year. There isn’t any wonderment. There is no conflict within the self and with others. Acceptance hasn’t been so easy before. Seemed so farcical. I felt, that Benjamin did grow from old to young but matured just the right way. So it made it easy as a narrative, I think. He is born old. Invariably he find shelter at an oldage home. Not a coincidence at all. I thought that it’s quite a easy way out. Child old. Begin by showing life with old people. As he grows, his experiences go along how he appears physically. By the time he’s back to becoming a child, life’s safely defined by then. Cool…
But What if Benjamin had a family? If he was raised among kids. Parents are there. Then what’s the environment for him to grow? His experiences then? The conflicts and the rest would naturally emerge then, I felt. Tough but right, I felt. It could and would have been a wonderful but painful watch then. Also, how was he born like this? A question that’s never answered or even thought about at all. Which is flabbergasting to me.
I was so unsatisfied after watching the film. Acting is good. Technically it’s classy. But it has no soul. And a story with a character like Benjamin Button just cries out for one.
Tags: Brad Pitt, cate blanchett, David Fincher, Taraji P Henson, The Curious case of Benjamin Button
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Agree with you Arthi. Felt the same. Everything was so convenient. The movie left me cold. Where was the drama and conflict? Even the war scenes were boring…
Shows that a great concept doesn’t always translate into a great movie.
One can easily compare this to say a Forrest Gump, which is also a life story of an unusual man. Not much plot there as well, but the similarity end there…
Thanks a lot for the article. While watching the movie, felt something was wrong, but couldnot put my finger on what it was.
Reminds me of another movie, Jack (Robin Williams). Wouldn’t say it was the same, but it had a similar concept. A weird aging process. Jack grew at 4 times the speed. So, while the kids around him were 10 he looked 40. The movie deals with the problems that come along the process. BB fails to touch even the most basic problems that Jack faced (not that it was THE movie to look up to).
if you are really curious read f scott fitzgeralds novel. . Its filled with rather depressing metaphors though, the chief one being the apparent regressiveness of human emotions in the 20th century(boy if fitzy were alive now). .. .i wonder if the hollywoodwallahs will stop making the typical oscar movies, ie nazis, holocaust, disability, political skirmishes etc. . and try and make movies that are fun and yet well made especially after slumdog. . Im putting my money on judd apatows next, funny people to break the oscar stereotype. . The longish trailer looks awesome
Part of the problem was Fincher’s take on the original story by Fitzgerald. While the story was a darkly comic farce, almost…… the film tries hard to make it a profound meditation on life, love and everything else…
BTW, I wasn’t convinced about Brad Pitt’s nomination either… I would’ve given Pitt’s spot to Colin Farrell for “In Bruges” or better still… good ol’ Leo for Revolutionary Road..
Fantastic write up. This movie truly had no soul. I couldn’t understand how so many people I spoke to felt touched by it. I found the concept very appealing but didn’t find the movie to be any more fulfilling than the trailer. I was glad to see it only win the few oscars it deserved.
@Aditya
totally agree….Fincher lost the soul of the book and made it more about the ‘meeting in the middle’
and most of brad pitt’s work was done by the visual effects guys…..
Arthi- very well written.yet to watch the movie, so cannot comment on it.May watch it just for all the attention it has been grabbing.
yup – boring movie. also, there’s nothing in the movie besides a brad pitt aging backwards. one is just waiting for the old brad pitt to turn into the good looking brad pitt. there’s nothing else.
Exactly, my words… or anyone victimized by the film… real boring stuff…
cate, i felt, was the wrong choice for the role… someone prettier getting old gradually would’ve melted by heart a bit…
a great handling of a similar ‘mishap’ was ‘The Man From Earth’; about a man who has always been around and has stopped aging… i recommend this one, fellow victims.
What I interpreted from the story was that even though Benjamin was born weird, he still much had the same life as a person born young….he still found family when he was young(i.e old), he found his love young, then he went humping like a teenager, then he went out to search for his destiny…then he found true love again with Blanchett during his mid years….then as he grew younger he seperated, then he travelled the world to find the meaning of life….then he went into loneliness when he became small and had to be cared by her….he saw evryone he cared for die before him….
I am not the only one then!! Some-how I was not able to appreciate this movie at all..
@ Aditya: I agree, Leo was far better in Revolutionary Road..
Sethumadhavan, Daljeet – Thanks. Sethumadhavan do see the film if you have 3 hrs of nothing much to do. Not sure even if its still worth that tho…:)…
Neeraj – You’re welcome…Not heard of the film ‘Jack’ before…but may take a look there sometime…tx….
PJ, Thanks for ‘The man from Earth’. I remember watching its making some time back and reading pretty +ve stuff @ it n then it just zoomed out of my head…got to watch this sometime…