The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Movie Blurb by Shale December 27, 2008 Everyone who's read my movie blurbs knows how I hate sitting thru long movies and this one is two hours and 47 minutes long. But, to chronicle the eight-decade lifespan of Benjamin Buttons as he regresses backward in age had to take a bit of time and (tho I still could have edited this flick down by half an hour) it was an interesting life to follow. Also you know that I don't compare movies to books or plays or whatever else from which they derive but I was so intrigued by this story that I looked up F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story to see exactly how they compared. Well, you could more accurately say this movie was based on a concept by Fitzgerald as his short story had little similarity except for the premise that a baby is born an old man and steadily gets younger over the years. The movie starts with an old woman, Daisy (Cate Blanchett under makeup) dying in a New Orleans hospital and her daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) is saying her last farewells. The mother directs her to read from a diary of Benjamin Buttons. Daisy dying in a New Orleans hospital with Caroline So the story is told in Benjamin Button's narrative starting with his birth in 1918 as an old man, being abandoned by his father and taken in by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) a black nurse in a New Orleans nursing home. He survived to everyone's amazement and grew in size as a small old man, wheelchair bound with arthritis but getting stronger as he got younger. His adoptive mother took him to a tent revival where Benjamin (Brad Pitt's face in makeup superimposed onto a child's body) did his first faltering steps free of the chair. First Walking at a Healing Revival While at the home, he meets Daisy as a little girl visiting her grandmother. They become childhood friends (and we really see Benjamin as a child who only looks like a little old man). I won't go into the couple of hours of Benjamin's life and adventures but suffice to say that he and Daisy separate after childhood and step in and out of each others' lives several times as she grows up and he grows younger. Finally, they get together in the late '60s when he has been living for 48 years and she is in her early 40s. Meeting Half Way From here, it might ruin it for you to give away any more of the relationship of Daisy and Benjamin and their inevitable ends. Well, we do know that Daisy is dying in a hospital with her middle-aged daughter reading Benjamin's diary for the first time. Secrets are revealed and how that all came about you will see when you watch this excellent movie. I really enjoyed it.
I saw it New Years eve and almost missed the count down! I'm normally the type who loves the obvious to be Oscar nominated movies but this was awful. I was very very very bored. It was much too long. I thought Benjamin and Daisy weren't even right for each other. I was annoyed at the overuse of the lightning joke. Yes, 7 times ughhhhh. Not for me I suppose.
I cried so much towards the end of the movie. I cannot remember the last time i cried at the movies. Maybe titanic. This was a phenominal movie i thought. Very well shot and produced.
I've had this movie for a while but haven't yet watched it, after reading this I'll try watching it tonight, and leave my opinion later
I really liked this movie it made me cry, just the thought of how this poor human being was left behind because he was different at birth but picked up by a loving woman then taken care of in his old/young age. blew my mind, the reverse aging process.
Drama, which of course, isn't in the subcategories... Movie was enjoyable but boring. Definitely either too long, or too little to say
Yeah, "Drama" could be a better choice. I put it in Cult because there didn't seem to be a better description than: "those strange and weird films that spawned cult followings" It may be a Cult movie someday in the future. Sometimes it is a judgment call, such as putting Twilight in "Romance." Some people might think, since it is about vampires and werewolves it should be in horror, but no, it is all about a complicated love triangle. I am just trying to clean out the "New Movies" folder where I put all my blurbs. Usually move them when the DVD comes out and they are no longer "new."
