In an American hospital, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), an elderly woman surrounded by pillows, is dying. Under the watchful eye of her nurse and daughter (Julia Ormond), she asks them to read aloud the diary of one Benjamin Button – a marvel of nature born as an old man on the day World War I ended, and who died as an infant just as the American occupation of Iraq began. The reading is interspersed with extensive flashbacks, vividly depicting the entire 20th century: 1920s New Orleans, the Great Depression, World War II, the 50s, 60s, and so on. As this epic timeline progresses, the aging-in-reverse old man, increasingly resembling actor Brad Pitt, eventually rejuvenates into a vibrant man, finally matching the age of his dream girl – Daisy herself. He spends the happiest years of his life with her, until the growing age difference becomes apparent. Meanwhile, another major historical event – Hurricane Katrina – looms over the hospital where the diary is being read.
David Fincher, like a stubborn, experimental breeder, keeps trying to graft some intricate “story” onto the simple mainstream. This time, he has clearly missed the mark and overestimated the possibilities embedded in the script by Eric Roth, a moderately clever but mainstream Hollywood writer. If you’ve already taken the bait, as Fincher probably did, regarding the “mystery” of the presented case, you’ll be quite disappointed: there was nothing mysterious in the life of the upstanding Mr. Button, except perhaps his own health condition. In all other respects, Benjamin Button’s story is simple and consists of three banal things – he was born, he lived, he died. And the fact that the protagonist is born as a decrepit old man and dies as a rosy infant adds no additional meaning to it. What difference does it make where to start counting if “we all die in diapers,” as Blanchett’s character rightly points out?
The Illusion of Intrigue
When the future is equated with the past, the story in between ceases to be interesting, the intrigue degenerates into truisms, and instead of a mystery, there remains an empty spectacle – an entertainment that cinema had much in common with in its early stages. Thus, director Fincher has added an old man-infant to the circus panopticon of a snake woman, Siamese twins, and a black monkey-man (who, by the way, also appears in the film), whom it is, of course, foolish to gawk at in real-time. A person is just a person, nothing special.
A Spectacle of Rejuvenation
But if you promise the public that the first will turn into the second in one evening, you can already sell tickets to “the most mysterious show in the world.” Technology, as we know, does not stand still. In fact, Fincher’s film, if you discard the scenery and subtract the chic historical props, as well as sporadic claims to profundity and other sentimental nothings – is a spectacle of Brad Pitt’s rejuvenation: both pregnant women and other impressionable viewers will be satisfied with his heartbreaking old man-infant, for whom it is worth stocking up on elephantine patience and the most voluminous handkerchief for two and a half hours.
And, without a doubt, aging American film academics will be too.