“In the end, we’re all in diapers,” actress Cate Blanchett is supposed to have quipped while talking about her current movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
A fable, a picaresque tale, a meditation on age and survival, the movie tells the story of a man who is born old and as he grows older in years, grows younger in form. The film is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald who was inspired, it is said, by a quip by Mark Twain about how at both the start and end of life, we end up in the same situation. A more contemporary rendering is the joke that at birth and nearing death, we all end up the same: toothless, speechless, hairless, virtually blind, incontinent and dependent on others for our survival.
Fitzgerald, in his short story, takes a rather sour view of such reverse progression. A man cannot win, he seems to point out. Whether he starts out as an infant, or a wizened individual, a man has only a single destination: the death of memory and the loss of power. It’s much the same conclusion for the movie—for how else are human beings to wind up their earthly affairs—but the difference is in the telling.
“Benjamin Button” is a lengthy movie, stretching for nearly three hours, but its meandering pace is justified not just by gorgeous cinematography and awe-inspiring special effects, but also by deep and satisfying insights into human nature and experience, into the nature of coincidence and fate, into loss and grace, compassion and love.
* * *
The movie starts out with another story that is seemingly unrelated to the rest of the plot. Shortly before World War I, a blind clockmaker starts to work on a great clock for the city’s train terminal, but his work is interrupted by his beloved son’s draft to fight in the European battlefields and the son’s death. When finally the clock is unveiled (with Teddy Roosevelt as a witness), it is revealed that the mechanism works backwards, with the clockmaker declaring that perhaps, with time working backwards, it would be possible to reverse events, to bring home the sons parents had lost in the war.
As if to demonstrate the clockmaker’s fervent wish, a baby is born to a prosperous couple in New Orleans on the last day of the war. But when the husband, whose wife has died at childbirth, takes a look at his infant son, he is repulsed and rushes out to get rid of him, eventually leaving the bundle at the steps of an old age home.
The baby is rescued and raised by the home’s black housekeeper, who decides to keep him, believing that even such a strange creature “is a child of God” and thus deserving of care. And it is here, among people at the last stages of life, that Benjamin finds acceptance and friendship. But as he grows younger, Benjamin yearns for adventure, driven by a thirst to know more of the world. He leaves the safe haven of the old people, takes to sea, experiences war, falls in love, and then, at the height of his physical beauty and prowess, meets again with Daisy, the love of his life.
* * *
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” has long been in development among Hollywood studios. But as some reviewers posit, it is only now, with special effects achieving unprecedented heights, that it has become possible to make a plausible movie.
Brad Pitt, who plays Benjamin Button, can be considered a special effect himself. Certainly, I cannot conceive of any other actor who can look so absolutely stunning at any age, even with a few photo-shopped strokes. Cate Blanchett, as Daisy, is a force of nature in her early 20s, and parlays her background as a dancer to create the lithe and sensuous woman who has captured Benjamin’s heart. But it is in her more mature persona that Blanchett truly shines, ruing the signs of creeping age even as her partner grows visibly more youthful. When Benjamin pays her a visit after an absence of more than a decade, she has transformed into a more matronly, stately ballet teacher, married with a 12-year-old daughter, but whose passion and yearning for this man of her youth remains undiminished and still ablaze.
The two are backstopped by an impressive supporting cast: Tilda Swinton as Caroline, the diplomat’s wife who opens Benjamin’s heart and finds her own redemption through him; Taraji Henson as the motherly Queenie who raises Benjamin; Jared Harris as Captain Mike, the tugboat operator who brings Benjamin around the world and instructs him on manhood; and all the actors portraying the old people who collectively raise Benjamin and teach him lessons about life.
* * *
Iit’s no surprise that the movie was penned by Robin Swicord and Eric Roth, who also claims writing credit for “Forrest Gump.” Indeed, there is an uncanny resemblance between “Benjamin Button” and “Forrest Gump.” Not least of these is the ironic innocence of the leads, the naiveté both men bring to their appreciation of events swirling around them.
But while Gump often descended into embarrassing mawkishness, Button remains ironic, detached, even humorous toward the people in the story. This touch must be ascribed to director David Fincher, who has shown himself to be unflinching in his treatment of violence and human frailty, and in “Benjamin Button” even towards the undeniable, unstoppable march of time.
It is a thought that scares all of us. We all know our life must come to an end sometime, but that exact time is beyond our control or knowledge, nor even the circumstances in which we will meet our earthly end.
It is beyond our reckoning, and all we can do is to prepare for a good death, to be ready to depart this world knowing we have made peace with our enemies, and told all we care for how much we love them.
