There are a number of reasons why David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could be considered a wonderful movie: a top notch director, talented actors, F. Scott Fitzgerald, lush cinematography, an imaginative premise, and the list goes on. This is a movie that's hard to not be seduced by, with its epic grandeur and emotional sensationalism, which leaves little doubt most people exiting the cinema will feel like they got every penny worth of the admission price. Count me as one of them...almost.Once I left the cinema, the wheels started turning and the off-the-cuff comment I made to my girlfriend about 30 minutes into the movie started to swell (once I cross referenced it with the interwebs): "This sure feels a lot like Forrest Gump." We started discussing the film and before long, my girlfriend and I realized: even though we loved the movie, a few things really bugged us about it. Credit these nit-picky annoyances to Academy Award winning screenwriter Eric Roth.
First of all, why did Roth craft such a patently obvious imitation of Forrest Gump? Did he think no one would notice? Was it such a success the first time he couldn't resist going to the well one more time? Was he just being lazy? Perhaps we'll never know the answers to these questions, but it's possible if Gump never existed, neither would this particular interpretation of TCCoBB. So, in a roundabout and perhaps logically flawed way, I guess I should be happy Gump exists. I'm not sure I can accept that.
I gave it some more thought and I concluded: the existence of Gump -and its regrettable aftertaste flavoring Button- actually weakens the latter and this is why:
The present tense in which the Button is set, doesn't anchor the film in any way (as it did with Gump), it merely acts as a device to further the narrative (which it also did in Gump, but in a relevant way). The question that begs to be asked is: considering how engaging and incredibly fantastic Button's story is, do we really need anyone else to tell his story other than him?
OK, perhaps having Daisy along for the ride was a perfectly reasonable solution to supplying us with an epilogue to Button's story (once his journal ends), but is this the only reason we have old Daisy (Cate Blanchett) dying on a hospital bed with her daughter by her side? One could argue that this is the backbone of the story because it structures the film in a satisfying and cohesive way. This could also be credited as being profound since this woman's recollection of her life and connection to an extraordinary person has everything to do with the overriding themes of life, death and aging. Perhaps...but I don't buy it. Let's be honest: the death bed scenario is a worn out, old cliché.
You could argue that it was necessary in order for the daughter to know who her real father was, but that too would be a lie. The daughter's revelation is completely unnecessary, pointless and -if you think about it- cruel. Does she need to know she was fathered by a man who has been dead for years? A man she didn't even know? Why would she want to know when it's possible the man who raised her for her ENTIRE life is still alive? Why destroy that? Some secrets should be kept secrets and Daisy's lack of tact is completely out of character.
No, the whole present tense stinks of something manipulative and cunning, something completely removed from Button's story; the present tense is there for the vanity of making itself seem more profound than it actually is. Even setting the hospital scenes on the brink of Hurricane Katrina unleashing her destructive force smells of something fishy. Is this perfect storm supposed to comment on the freak of Benjamin's nature and how life and death are intricately entwined within the unstoppable passage of time, or was it simply a gimmick to play off our emotional connection to the tragic events attributed to this natural disaster?
The plot points that keep bringing us back to the present tense call to attention the artifice of Roth's technique and his adherence to a screenwriting playbook. The present tense cross fading into flashbacks is a device older than Citizen Kane (which mastered the technique), although unlike Kane (which had good reason to try to put the pieces of a mysterious life together), Button never delivers a justified or profound connection to the hospital scenes and Benjamin's life.
Regardless of this one major issue I have with TCCoBB, I went to see it again. I did so because this was a movie that initially moved me and gave me a fresh perspective on aging and dying. I wanted to know if I'd been had by an ingenious, yet manipulative and calculating screenwriter. After my first viewing, I felt this was an exceptional and profound movie, but with all my nitpicking, I was hesitant to credit it as such. After my second screening -despite my issues with Roth's screenplay intact- I left the movie feeling as touched by the movie this time as I had the first. So if the saying goes something like 'fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me,' then I should probably be ashamed...but I'm not.
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