Blu-ray Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Out on Blu-ray and DVD this week is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the big-screen adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name.  The movie, nominated for 13 Academy Awards, is an attractive period film directed by David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club) and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.

Let’s face it, if you’re sitting down for a two hour and forty minute movie, you want to know if the payoff justifies the invested time. What I’m willing to admit up front is that the film is too long. However, you will take at least one of two things away from it: that it offers up a fascinating presentation of an idea that hasn’t been done on the big screen or that it’s a charming romance story featuring two of today’s most well known actors.

Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a man who seemingly grows biologically younger as time passes. We get to see to many phases of Benjamin’s life as he is abandoned by his biological father and raised by stand-in mother Queenie (Taraji P. Henson).

TCCOBB borrows many storytelling elements from Forrest Gump (both written by Eric Roth); it follows the main character through the many phases of life, setting historical events and places as familiar backdrops. Similar to Gump, it also presents us with exaggerated yet very interesting supporting characters, all of whom have some significant influence on our protagonist’s life. Deepening the analogy, Blanchett, who plays the main love interest Daisy, is Jenny to Button’s Gump; probably the least interest and dare I say, most annoying character. This has nothing to do with Blanchett’s acting, but the movie spends a lot of time investing on Button’s devotion to her, while implictly depicting her an elusive and undeserving romantic match (just like Jenny was in Gump).

The film does its job in captivating the audience, if not for the rich characters, for  the beautifully shot scenes, environments and costumes. Pitt’s Button is absorbing; you care about Benjamin and some of these people in his life (most notably Queenie, his mother played by Taraji P. Henson). At first glance, it appears that the reverse-aging gimmick will be the primary take-away (watching Pitt act young when he looks old is a winning formula that the movie takes advantage of), but Roth and Fincher packed enough emotional turns and unexpected developments that flesh out the film into more of an epic.

Ultimately, TCCOBB is an impressive achievement in technical filmmaking and an average romantic tale. But the adventure the story takes you on makes it worth watching.

The Criterion Collection Blu-ray release is amazing; the picture quality is perfect and the film is presented in 5.1 Dolby Digital sound.

Even better, the special features are worth the price of admission and do the release justice.  The “Curious Birth of Benjamin Button” is a four part documentary and an incredibly in-depth look at what it took to bring CCOBB to the big screen. Showing up in this featurette are the cast and crew. Things you’ll learn along the way is that the the film had been in development for some 17 years for a number of reasons (too expensive, technology didn’t support the aging process, etc.), how they allowed Brad Pitt to play Benjamin throughout the whole movie instead of switching actors.

The release also comes with “Stills Galleries,”, which is a nice collection of storyboards and stills from the production of the movie. The storyboards didn’t really do much for me as they were pretty rough around the edges, but there are a good collection of stills on the release.