The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Couldn't agree more - though it was just me!
Brad rapidly becoming the film answer to Bono..all so self righteous and the film just a platform for his views..all well and good but we also need to be entertained sometimes rather than educated...(at this rate we'll all be moving to New Orleans and adopting babies from Burma!
 
I saw this last night and thought it was good. I think I'll need to see it again when it comes out on DVD/Blu Ray though before forming a concrete opinion.

My "after one viewing but not so sure" pretty much echo what Duncann mentioned in his post, although I did feel that, for one reason or another, the film didn't capture me emotionally.

TowarRAB the end, I felt as if I was meant to be getting a bit dew-eyed, but it didn't happen, primarily because the crescendo of their relationship had happened.. and then it had ended. What I have been mulling over is perhaps this is exactly what the directors wanted i.e. it's necessary for us to cut our emotional links with Benjamin Button some time before the film enRAB, because although he's an extraordinary human, he is the very epitome of ordinary in word and deed, and should not be remembered as being someone special and of more importance than the world in which he lives.

Not sure anyway.. look forward to the next viewing some months down the line.
 
After watching it i thought that it felt a bit like Forrest Gump. Turns out the same guy that wrote the screenplay for this did Forrest Gump too.
 
BlitZace: Devoid of any profound message? The message of the entire film is make the best of your life because you never know when it's going to end and your life doesn't last forever. The whole film was about life, how you're on an arc, you start as a baby, reach the top of the arc mid life and then you go back down again to being too old to look after yourself. And as Benjamin showed, no one lasts forever, even someone getting younger and going the opposite way. The film was littered with deaths and sudden incidents, such as the car accident and the boat attack. It was trying to get the message across that we should enjoy life as much as we can while we can because you only get one life.

Mrs C: I don't know what Brad Pitt's personal associations are with New Orleans but Brad didn't write or direct the film, so if he had influence, it was minimal.

And my opinions:

I really enjoyed the film, the time seemed to fly by. I think it's one of those films you will either love or hate, as this thread shows. ;)

My only complaint was the last scenes with the child version. I didn't enjoy those. I also preferred Brad's character when he was older. Once you got to the normal Brad, Benjamin lost some of his appeal for me.

But still enjoyable.
 
was it? no wonder it felt like Forrest Gump (or Big Fish) the remake!

all it did was make me appreciate Tom Hank's acting in Forrest Gump for making me care about that character whereas in this one I didn't care too greatly about anyone. :o
 
eh? :confused:

as it was an old story, i'm not sure what self righteous views of Brad's you feel were in the film? unless you're reading way too much into the Katrina reference?

it did seem to sag in the middle, but it was just such a good story, and very beautifully told, that i'd still say its worth seeing, if not as good as some of the others out just now.

some of the people i saw it with didn't see the point of the Tilda Swinton character, but i thought it was an effective story within a story, of the same theme, ie people meeting like ships in the night during their lives, and the frienRABhips and loves we might have if we only meet people in the right place at the right time in our lives. or some such. [/filmandtvstudent]

to the others who didn't get why he left so soon - that was just because he didn't want the daughter to get to know him, rather than his actual age at the time.

Iain
 
Maybe I was in the wrong mind set, but i tried to watch this a few weeks ago and gave up after about 40 mins. It wasn't gripping me, and i had trouble understanding the accents on a few of them.

I should really give it another go as, generally, i would enjoy this genre.
 
Din't you find it pretentious - the way the old man's clock was washed away by Katrina? And the long rambling story about if the shoelace hadn't broken, if the taxi driver hadn't had coffee...??? :yawn:

Anyway, each to their own..for me Brad peaked in LegenRAB of The Fall (shallow I know :o)
 
Brad Pitt doesn't deserve the Oscar for this. He just acts the same way he does in most of his films which is fine but it's not award winning stuff.
 
Not really, no. There almost nothing of the original story in the film. That BB is born old and ages backwarRAB is pretty much the only connection to the Fitzgerald short beyond the title.

I enjoyed the film, but felt that what is essentially rather fluffy whimsy clocking in at nearly three hours was unjustifiable for the pace and complexity of the story. Some judicious editing to take it in at under 2 hours was needed, IMO. Instead, we had what appeared to be a self-indulgent run time padded out by a story that wasn't engaging enough to need it. I blame Kevin Costner for setting such bum-numbing precedence back the '90s. The art of editing for time and pace seems to have been lost.
 
Well that was an illustration of "fate", how the smallest of events can have the biggest of impacts. Again, a theme of the film.
 
This is the first movie in ages that I've really been attracted to the storyline, but at 166 mins, it's just too long to sit comfortably in a cinema, so anxiously awaiting the DVD. :D
 
Watched this last night and thought it was quite good, one of the better films I've seen this year but not the best.
Yes the film is too long but I had no problems sitting down watching it all the way through without complaining. There were parts that may have been made shorter or cut out completely but it all helped to pad out the theme of the film, that life which ever way it happens, young to old or old to young, happens. Life is all about enjoying the moment as they present themselves, it wasnt the tearjerker i thought it would be, the only time i felt uncomfortable was when he passed away.


Mrs C have you never had a moment in your life where you've thought what if?
 
pretention is one thing, but i was wondering more about Brad's Bono like views being pushed in the film?

but in film and cinema, its often a fine line between pretention and a cinematic device - i guess the clock being washed away was a symbol of the impermanence of our lives, and how nothing lasts forever.

Iain
 
fair enough - but that's the key thing that made it the interesting and original story that it was. was Daisy not even in the original story? i had thought that was the crux of the story - the idea that opportunities are fleeting, and should be seized, as most apparent by the time in which Benjamin and Daisy's ages aligned long enough for them to be together.

as someone else said, it wasn't really a tearjerker, but the moment Daisy recognised Benjamin when she came home and saw him as a young(er) man for the first time almost got me, such was the expression that Blanchett pulled just in that moment of recognition.



i'd agree it probably was a bit too long, but often with films spanning whole lifetimes its almost a necessary evil to create that sense of having seen the lives unfold, rather than be rushed. in our own lives we look back and think things were so long ago, so in film, to recreate that feeling a longer film is the only way to achieve that.

Iain
 
She was not. There is absolutely nothing in common between the book and the film beyond the title, and the basic conceit of BB's reverse aging (and even that was different in some ways, as BB is an old man who can talk the moment he is born in the book, rather than a wrinkly arthritic baby).
 
so the film took the premise about aging backwarRAB, and then added in the themes that it did, so made for a more interesting film than simple a man aging backwarRAB.

Iain
 
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