The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – GC Movie Review

The film opens up in a New Orleans hospital room where an aged, yet semi lucid woman begins to share a story with her grown daughter Caroline ( Julia Ormond ) about her past. The story she shares has to do with a blind clock builder who's married to a Creole woman. They have a son, who as he grows up, decides to go to war. After receiving the news that their son had died, the clock builder works effortlessly on completing the clock he had recently begun. At the unveiling it is discovered that the clock only runs counter clockwise. His description was: “Maybe if we could allow time to run backwards, all of our sons & daughters that have gone off to war could return home.” A bit morbid, but all who attended the unveiling wished it were true. After this day the clock builder was never seem again; he died of a broken heart.

The story of Benjamin ( Brad Pitt ) begins at the end of the First World War. He is born to wealthy parents, the father, Thomas Button ( Jason Flemyng ) is distraught by the appearance of his newborn son, whisks him away on sight and leaves him on the steps of Nolan House, a retirement home where he is taken in by Queenie ( Taraji Henson ) the black caretaker. Although she is shocked by his appearance she remarks about him being “a child of God and needing love too.”

Quickly time begins to pass and at the tender age of seven, Benjamin resembles a man still in his 80's. He's restricted to a wheelchair, balding, liver spots, arthritis, partially blind and deaf, yet on the inside he's a child begging to be pardoned from his deteriorating body. Queenie, a godly woman, would take Benjamin to church to have the pastor pray the demons “off of Benjamin's” back. It was during one of these prayer services that Benjamin walked for the first time.

In a story that begins to parallel that of Forrest Gump, where the main characters, recognized initially by their handicaps and by society standards should be shunned, there are a chosen few that bring transforming meaning to their otherwise lonely lives. In Forrest's case, he was born handicapped and his mental capacity was stunted, whereas Benjamin was born resembling an 80 year old man with the heart and mind of a child. Forrest had his momma - Benjamin has his Momma, Forrest had his Jenny - Benjamin has his Daisy ( Cate Blanchett ), Forrest had his Captain Dan - Benjamin has his Captain Mike ( Jared Harris ).