Dec 30 2008
My Impressions of Benjamin Button
In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt is born an old man and ages backwards until he becomes a child. As an old man with the emotional maturity of an adolescent, he can’t go around hitting on teenage girls, so his first sexual experiences are with older women. He’s attracted to a teen aged Cate Blanchett, but he has to wait for her to grow older and for his physical self to become younger in appearance before he can act on his feelings. If they have a relationship, how long can it last if she’s becoming an old woman while he’s becoming a child? These are just some of the problems he’s up against. And I have to admit it makes for one hell of an interesting movie.
The old-looking Brad Pitt is unrecognisable at first, but slowly his eyes and his mouth become more defined, his voice changes, his tiny, bent decrepit body begins to straighten out and take on muscle mass. The transformation is bizarre — it plays out with a fantastic quality like a fairytale — yet Pitt’s understated performance makes it seem real and sympathetic. For those able to go along with it, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is well worth the price of admission. Personally, I was too distracted by his ageing backwards to get caught up in the emotional undercurrents of the story, but I suspect I may have a higher opinion of the movie when I get around to watching it again someday. And I know I will.
Yeah, but the important question: Did anyone in the audience get shot because they were talking too loud?
I left my gun at home. However, I began whistling in the middle of a sombre scene in Doubt a couple days ago. I don’t why I did it. The whole theatre was silent — and I begin to whistle something like, “She’ll Be Coming Around The Mountain.” I’m lucky I didn’t get shot.
Loved it. Like you, I thought Pitt’s performance was understated and sympathetic (and in complete contrast to his performance in “Burn After Reading” which I also enjoyed.)
Yup, it’s a lot like Forrest Gump.
yes a movie about acceptance and living live without fear and for everymoment….a message told to you as you wile away three hours of your exisitence in a dark room isolated despite the throng of people around you, lulled into the belief of a common experience, most likely chawing down on some form of food like product….at least I am now interested in the written story….if we were to act as these tales tell us a movie theatre is most likely the last place we would be….
the really sad thing is that I asked the kid that I know at the theatre what all the cars outside were for and he said that “Mall Cop” had sold out….we are doomed as a species….
Dawn and I saw this last night. A memorable movie: I find myself thinking about it afterwords; not many movies make me do that.