THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON: TWO-DISC SPECIAL EDITION (Criterion, 2008) D: David Fincher, w/ Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett. Rating: NNNN DVD package: NNNNN Rating: NNNN
The most curious thing about The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is the enormous contrast between the delicacy of its effect and the ponderous means used to achieve it.
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Apart from aging backwards – born a little old man, ending as a baby – Benjamin Button has an ordinary life. He finds love with his childhood sweetheart, works on a tugboat, sees some of the world and serves in World War II.
By the end, I was left with a quietly uncomfortable sense of the impermanence of all things, the certainty of my own death and none of the usual spurious comforts of fate, faith, nobility or love.
The movie itself is anything but delicate. It feels much longer than its two hours and 45 minutes, loaded to distraction with pretty visuals and special effects, though director David Fincher never stops the show just to let us gawk.
The biggest effect is Brad Pitt, as Benjamin, whose head is heavily made up, computer processed and composited onto a long string of body actors. Cate Blanchett as the love of Benjamin’s life, and Taraji P. Henson, his foster mother, get their share of latex, too. The performances are uniformly excellent, but it’s a relief when we can finally see the actors themselves.
The feature-length making-of doc offers lots of insight into Fincher’s creative process. He’s a self-described control freak and cynic, but he’s warm and personal on his commentary and the prologue to the production doc, where he talks about the birth of his son and the death of his father.
If you don’t want all the extras, Paramount has a single-disc edition. Oddly, the prices aren’t very different.
EXTRAS Disc one: Fincher commentary. Widescreen. English, French, Spanish audio and subtitles. Disc two: five-part making-of doc, print essay. Widescreen. English audio. English, French, Spanish subtitles.
