By Adam Baird
a-baird.1@onu.edu
Oh, the complexities of life. Never have they been more intimately (or truthfully) explored on film than in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” a mythic, mesmerizing saga imbued with a sense of melancholy about the fleeting nature of life, love and happiness.
Brad Pitt (an utter marvel) plays the eponymous hero Benjamin, who brings new meaning to “aging gracefully,” — in reverse, no less. Abandoned by his birth father as a withered infant, Benjamin is raised in a retirement home by a kindly, no-nonsense attendant named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson in a tender, Oscar-worthy turn). An establishment awash in the gentility of the Old South, the home is ideal for a child who, with his bald pate, poor vision, deficient hearing, and creaky joints, fits right in with the other occupants.  
Death — essentially a character in its own right — pervades the film and Benjamin's life, but in a matter-of-fact, rather than depressing manner. Truth be told, if you're raised among geriatrics in a retirement home, death is never a stranger. Accordingly, the film shrewdly impels the viewer to confront the idea that death is inevitable and nothing in life is permanent. Sure, a harsh outlook, but a bracingly frank one all the same.
As restlessness consumes him early in life, Benjamin embarks on a sweeping sojourn of self-discovery marked by colorful encounters with a street-wise pygmy drifter (newcomer Rampai Mohadi), a perpetually inebriated tugboat captain (a hilarious Jared Harris), and a cunning and cultured adulteress (the always superb Tilda Swinton), who teaches Benjamin a thing or two about “pleasing” a grown woman.
In addition to his globe-trotting adventures, the film examines Benjamin’s decades-spanning romance with Daisy (Cate Blanchett, understated and sexier than ever), whom he falls madly in love with as a rickety youth. However, for Benjamin, love is inextricable from loss since his path runs counterclockwise to nature. So, Daisy zigzags in and out of Benjamin’s life and eventually comes to embody his emotional touchstone when the two “meet in the middle.”
Nevertheless, soon after rekindling their romance in their 40s, complications arise, as Benjamin and Daisy realize the unsettling realities of their devastatingly disparate futures: Daisy will meet with physical decay, while Benjamin will experience mental regression in a creaseless state of infancy.  
With little more than the central aging conceit intact, the film certainly deviates from its source material, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1922 short story of the same name, but that’s to be expected when a 25-page literary piece is adapted to an epic motion picture clocking in at just under three hours. Screenwriter Eric Roth (“Forrest Gump,” “Munich”) frames the film with scenes of a shriveled Daisy (Blanchett, after many hours with make-up artists) lying in a New Orleans hospital bed with her 40-something daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) at her side. As Caroline reads from the late Benjamin’s diary, Roth employs a rapidly impending Hurricane Katrina as a symbol of the rushing tide of life and the corresponding inevitability of death.    
As far as acting is concerned, Brad Pitt, at the peak of his powers, proves his talent truly knows no bounds and his celebrity is by no means a hindrance. And for all you naysayers out there who still subscribe to the notion that Pitt’s looks overshadow his acting chops, check out “Button” and we’ll talk.
Also in “Button” we see a side of director David Fincher that wasn’t afforded to us in his gritty, cool-to-the-touch thrillers “Seven” and “Fight Club.” Nonetheless, despite shifting psychological gears, Fincher maintains his unique creative spark, only this time around that spark serves to illuminate, rather than burn.
Furthermore, the performance capture technology utilized by Fincher in the film is no doubt breathtaking, not to mention shockingly unobtrusive, but the director’s most striking achievement involves his ability to place the state-of-the-art special effects entirely at the service of story and character. Of course, the viewer knows that Brad Pitt performed many of his scenes with image sensors plastered to his face, but that doesn’t make the final product any less absorbing, or any less remarkable. In fact, Benjamin’s journey is so thoroughly enthralling that one tends to forget that the character is a digital creation.
All in all, with its steady tone, delicately nuanced performances, expertly crafted screenplay, and keen direction, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is the complete package, a filmic fairy tale to be treasured. Yet in this fairy tale, “happily ever after” is merely a pipe dream. And that’s exactly how it should be.
Overall Rating, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”: 4/4