I’m at a loss. I’m not really sure why this film got so much critical praise and award nominations. While far from bad, it’s also far from great. It’s another example of where “it doesn’t suck” is taken as high praise.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons unfolds at a lugubrious (love that word) pace. It tells the tale of a man born physically old, who grows physically younger as he grows chronologically older. It’s a cute concept, much better done here than Frances Coppola did with Youth Without Youth (which is just tedious). It just doesn’t seem to have any relevance to the story that unfolds on the screen.
I suppose it could be an illustration of the saying, “Youth is wasted on the young.” Only it never seems to work that angle. The punchline, such as it is, seems to be that you can swear, fight, struggle, but in the end, you die. This is news?
In many ways, this is Forest Gump Revisited, only a shade more mature. Where Gump was more often humorous, Buttons is almost always somber. Both films are populated with colorful characters, central characters in both are from the Deep South, and the titular characters in both see the world differently from “ordinary” folk. The comparison seems apt, especially since I was never as swept away by Gump as everyone else seemed to have been. It was a pleasant enough film, and so is Buttons, but neither is much more than that.
The difference, I think, comes from the men behind the camera. With Gump, Bob Zemeckis hit his (to date) career high. In contrast, there’s David Fincher’s Buttons. I’ve always enjoyed Fincher’s work, and it’s in comparison to his past track record that Buttons is disappointing.
I’m one of those who believe that if Fincher had been left alone, Alien 3 would have been a great science fiction classic. And while neither is perfect, both Seven and Fight Club have glimpses of genius. He stumbled a bit with Panic Room, which is a rather ordinary, if well made, thriller. He took all that he had done and learned and produced the genuinely chilling Zodiac.
Compared against those, Buttons is pedestrian. It’s beautifully photographed and captures its passing eras with deft authenticity. A battle between a tug boat and a U-boat is a standout for demonstrating simple tension and determination. Again and again, the film delivers a lush visual landscape. I was startled how well Zodiac recreated the San Francisco I grew up in, and I wonder if residents of New Orleans feel the same about how Buttons recreates their town.
But in the end, these are only the sets and locales. They do not a movie make. Buttons plays out like an excuse to recreate places and things, but the people are given little to do other than...live.
Maybe that should be enough, but with this film and for me, it wasn’t. There were no magical revelations, no fascinating re-examinations, not even a gentle nudge to our gentle assumptions about life.
I prefer Fincher when he upsets my world, when he nudges my sensibilities with either a little push or a boot to the head. Seven complicates simple law-and-order morality, while Fight Club has you questioning reality itself. Panic Room makes you understand that real security comes from within one’s self, and not a concrete room. And Zodiac strips away all sense of security, invoking tension with a creaking floorboard or less, and recreating within your gut what it was like living in a town with an unknown (and still unknown) serial killer.
Alas, The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons isn’t in their league. It’s a well-made mainstream film that is lovely to look at, but contains nothing to think about.
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