Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett & Taraji P. Henson
Director: David Fincher
Rating:
Enetertainment Quotient: 20%
Genre: Drama/Fantasy
Runtime: 166 min
MPAA rating: PG 13

Synopsis:
Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is born as an old man and he grows younger with age. Benjamin’s mother dies while giving birth to him. His father is so terrified that he leaves the baby at the doorstep of an old-age home. Queenie (Taraji P Henson) takes care of the baby and raises him. He falls in love with a girl called Daisy (Cate Blanchet) who often visits old-age home to see her grandmother. The rest of the story is all about the curious process of reverse aging of Benjamin.

What is special about the film?
This film is a fantasy film where the process of aging is reverse for Benjamin. The director employed terrific techniques that go well with this theme like –

1. Reverse clock: The movie starts with showing a clock manufacture making a huge clock that ticks in reverse because he wants to reverse the time to get back his son who died during the war.

2. Old-age home: We have seen films where just born babies are left at orphanages. But the father of Benjamin leaves this just born baby at an old-age home because this film is about reverse aging.

What I did not like in the film?
The duration is 2 hours and 45 minutes. Narration is very slow.

The scenes I liked?

1. Reverse clock episode.
2. Illustration of fate in heroine accident episode.
3. Lightening stuck elder repeating his experiences.
4. The episode of lady swimming across English Channel at an elder age.

Oscars:
This film has won three deserving Oscar awards – Best Art direction, best make-up and best visual effects. This film is set in the backdrop of early 1900’s and the art director could recreate it. It won best make-up because all the primary characters in this film age and it requires terrific make-up work. Visual effects because the reverse aging process is not just possible though make-up, hence seemingly natural visual effects create wonderful make-over for Brad Pitt in this film.

Why is Forrest Gump a better film?
The narration of Benjamin Button film has uncanny resemblance to Forrest Gump. Be it narrative style, flow of events, military angle etc. May be this resemblance could be attributed to Eric Roth who also penned screenplay for Forrest Gump. Forrest Gump works big time because there are many people like Forrest Gump in real life. Benjamin Button is based on fantasy of reverse aging. Hence there will not be any identifiable aspect in this film.

Tailpiece: This film is based on a short story (a comical). It is directed by David Fincher who directed films like Se7en, Fight Club, Panic Room and Zodiac in the past. This is the 3rd film in David Fincher and Brad Pitt combination after Se7en and Fight Club.