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Movie:		9.0
Picture:		9.0
Sound:		10.0
Extras:		9.0
Score:		9.0

Director(s):	David Fincher
Writer(s):	Eric Roth & Robin Swicord
Starring:	Brad Pitt • Cate Blanchett • Jared Harris • Taraji P. Henson • Tilda Swinton • Jason Flemyng
Genre:	Drama
Website:	http://www.benjaminbutton.com/
Release Date:	May 05, 2009
Rated:

List Price:	Blu-ray - $25.99
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Some will debate whether or not The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’s immediate induction into the Criterion Collection was deserved, but what cannot be contested is its reputation as an understated special effects marvel. Many Academy Awards for visual effects go home with big name blockbusters where half of the budget was spent on green screen takes, but in 2008 the film which set the bar used special effects in a way that left the audience truly stunned – and rightfully so. Considering how long The Curious Case of Benjamin Button sat in development hell, the fact that it emerged again with just the right cast and in a time when special effects had reached the necessary point of technical ability to make a man age in reverse is nothing short of miraculous.

In the ultimate parable about the appreciation of youth, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) lives his life backwards. Born as a wrinkly, aged infant, he grows from a wheelchair stricken geriatric to a man past his prime to a middle aged gentleman to an adventurous youth and back to a child. Aging in the typical fashion and meeting him somewhere in between is Daisy (Cate Blanchett), who witnesses Benjamin’s youthenization (as director David Fincher calls it) from the time she met him while visiting her grandmother at the retirement home all the way to their midnight rendezvous in New York City. The duo waits for time to bring them to common ground. Forgive the sappiness inherent in talking about this, but it’s a masterfully crafted love story that few directors can match with such panache. The film may be just shy of 3 hours long, but it’s a fantastic trip through time with an incredible cast.

Brad Pitt, whose face is recreated for each and every age, gives a solid though sometimes empty performance as the lead. Pitt’s a great actor – lead by a great director – but the issue of having your face pasted over that of another actor as you mimic the performance in a dark room is going to affect the role. And it did. Unlike everyone else who dealt with the actors standing in for Pitt, Brad had to almost literally phone in the first hour of the film. It shows. Once Brad takes over, however, Benjamin Button comes alive and receives that infusion of life that the first third of the film lacked. One of the weirdest aspects of the film was using Cate Blanchett’s voiceover for the seven-year old version of Daisy (Elle Fanning). When Elle first opens her mouth and a deeper, richer voice flows out it’s generally startling. There’s no attempt made to disguise that it’s Blanchett’s voice, and so the film just trundles onwards. Cate Blanchett is something of an acting goddess. She’s elegance personified and plays a woman whose dreams are snatched away by a combination of time and circumstance with such conviction that it sells the second half of the film.

What makes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the chronological epic of its time is its ensemble cast. Like Fincher’s other cameo-laden picture Forrest Gump, Benjamin Button encounters all sorts of personalities in his romp around the world. Jason Flemyng starts the story off as Benjamin’s horrified father who ditches the inexplicably aged baby on the doorstep of Queenie (Taraji P. Henson). Jared Harris plays Captain Mike who hires Benjamin to work aboard his ship leading him to a romance with Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton) whose pathway crosses with Benjamin’s in a remote Russian hotel.

Blu-ray Bonus Features

There’s a bittersweet side of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button receiving the Criterion Collection treatment right out of the gates: while we receive an initial copy of the film packed with special features and production featurettes which stretch on for hours, we don’t get the benefit of the retrospective and critical analysis that other Criterion entries receive after having existed on shelves for a decade or more. As the current release stands, no one ought to complain. The galleries on the supplementary disc stretch on into the hundreds with photography that could fill up a gallery in New York and sell. The photography is breathtaking at times. It’s rare that the “Gallery” option on a DVD or Blu-ray release is meaningful, but in this case it is. The extras are divided into three main categories by “trimesters” (think production stages) with a fourth category called “birth”.

The first trimester has featurettes detailing the pre-production hell the story of Benjamin Button went through to become a film with funding and studio backing. Interesting tidbits include the original stars slotted to play Benjamin (Tom Cruise at one point), potential directors and the remarkable volume of script rewrites the project went through. The underlying problem for all of these catches was the technology. With each and every approach to the film, creating a man who aged backwards proved to be a nigh-insurmountable goal – until 2008. The second trimester has plenty of footage from shooting on location and in studios. Cast and crew alike offer their takes on the film’s progress and stories behind the film’s New Orleans filming locations come to light. What the audience really learns in these segments is David Fincher’s dedication to perfection. Actors talk about their experiences getting their roles in the film as well as the trials faced in front of the camera. The third trimester holds the meat of the film’s technical wizardry. If you ever wondered how Brad Pitt’s face wound up on the body of a four-foot, wheelchair-bound man, your answer lies here. Each and every second of these featurettes is wildly entertaining as David Fincher is one hell of an engaging director to listen to. Included in all of this there are interviews with David Fincher, Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, many of the producers and writers as well as an audio commentary featuring Fincher.

Listen to the commentary. All the way through. It’s worthy of your time.

Perhaps it’s because they had so much behind-the-scenes footage on hand that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button received its Criterion Collection stamp immediately, or maybe it was studio politics. Either way, even if in a decade they release a whole new version, you can rest sound knowing that the current product has a massive amount of extra content that puts many of the current Criterion Collection offerings to shame. The Blu-ray presentation leaves you with a top-notch video transfer (the camera for which receives plenty of attention in the second trimester) and the audio sounds superb. The score comes across brilliantly.