The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Fincher has better stuff under his belt, but Benjamin Button is a memorable film nonetheless. It’s a sentimental tale about life and death that in 160 minutes portrays a completely ordinary story affected by unusual circumstances. But there’s power in simplicity, it allows the film to reveal the meaning of all the symbols that fill its runtime, delivering by the end an emotional load that mixes sadness, melancholy and fatality in precisely calculated proportions, one that will bring tears to the eyes of the more sensitive viewers… The firm director’s hand and the dreamy atmosphere are only secondary reasons to grant it 5 stars. Gorgeous. (31/01/2009)

I know that the movie is about the relentless passage of time, fateful encounters, and mutual passing in life. But with all due respect to the luxurious cast, budget, and technically precise direction, this is the only Fincher film that bores me and, above all, almost evokes no emotions in me. I am indifferent to the fate of the protagonist and in such cases, I cannot give it more than two stars. Overall impression: 45%. (01/01/2013)

A masterfully crafted arrow which, however, takes a too direct path to its target and is above all TOO LONG, in addition to being made of components that we already know too well. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button spoke to me with its magical first third full of sincere kindness and breathtaking effects that turn the digital Brad Pitt into a better actor than the real one we see later. But the rest is filled with cotton wool, having little to offer beyond things that are superfluous to Benjamin’s story. Overall, it’s a nice movie, but not the film of the year. David Fincher is wasted on such mainstream audience ass-kissing. This is paradoxically his least interesting and controversial work. (01/02/2009)

Unlike Forrest Gump, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not a celebration of an exceptional "fool", but much more an ad absurdum led by a metaphor for the ruthlessness of passing time, which unites and divides and does not take hostages... We do not find herein a fundamental part of a great history that the heroes would, like Švejk, circumnavigate in a cocoon of wise madness; Benjamin's journey is more pensive, simpler, and not as epic. In this respect, it is much more like Burton's Big Fish - it is not a metaphor for great society, but a metaphor for one life, one time, into which the times of the other characters are freely intertwined. The uniqueness of everyday life, the search for ideal balance, the fateful chaining of various timelines and the extraordinarily conciliatory picture of old age, is all loosely chained around the picture of a clock that goes backwards. Fincher tells a fairy tale in which the tones of harmony do not dominate, but rather the tones of melancholy and a kind of conciliatory realization that everything passes away, regardless of the direction in which time passes. Finiteness is immutable. Perhaps at first I was missing some more individuality, although the sense for detail, the wonderfully pastel visual and the fantastic pace of the storytelling are admirable. But that is not what this is about. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a Hollywood film, it has the philosophy of Hollywood (it does not offend), and has Hollywood emotions (it does not offend). The sentiment is balanced by the absence of an epic idyll. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a film about mortality, not immortality... That's why it is able do something more than an ordinary love story – evoke a feeling of deep participation. The film succeeded from my perspective, even though its wisdom is a bit typically “old". (15/02/2009)

Personally, I didn't expect to be so taken with Button but it was a joy to watch his life story. I have a feeling that David Fincher took the same meticulous approach as he did in Zodiac and just grafted it into a fairy tale about a guy who is growing younger and making his way through life despite being so peculiar. This acting recital from Brad Pitt (I stopped being shocked about the Oscar nomination) shines through the mask, and the completely natural special effects are perfectly complemented by red-head Cate Blanchett. It occurs to me to compare it with Zemekis's Forrest Gump but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button triumphs over dumb escapades with subtle humor and minimalism. Again, compliments to Fincher and also to Pitt. P.S.: It really pays to see it in a movie theater. (14/02/2009)