ongoing

 If you, by some chance, were born old and “aged’ backwards to birth, you might consider this a highly unusual occurrence and have it investigated by the greatest minds of the day – whichever day you happened to live in. If you’re Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” you realize you’re an odd duck – one of a kind - but you go about your life without asking the big questions or getting freaked by the process. It is normal to you. (I once asked ex-Monkee Peter Tork what it was like to be seen as an ex-Monkee your entire life and he answered, quite reasonably, “Compared to what?”) So, if you accept that premise – and I did as the movie gently unfolded – you’ll be able to slip into this epic story and apply that old “suspension of disbelief” theory.

There are many charms to this movie, based loosely on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story and directed by David Fincher. One is how Fincher – “Seven,” “Zodiac” - employs state-of-the-art special effects and makes Pitt’s Button completely credible, as a bent-over “old” man down to a “teenager.” (Much credit to the actor, too, of course. Yes, he should get an Oscar nomination.) Another is that you don’t keep thinking, “God, how did he do that?” Rather, you get absorbed in the story – Button’s birth, abandonment, salvation in an old folks home in New Orleans and then his life (war, love, travel).

You relate to this affable Southern gentleman and fully enjoy his early relationship with Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton), who teaches him about love. Button’s true love is Daisy’s (Cate Blanchett). They meet early in Button’s life (he as an old man, she as the granddaughter of a friend in the home), then hook up again as he’s aging down and her aging up. Here, they mesh. And, of course, we wonder what will happen, as they grow further apart as time marches on.

As has been said, “Benjamin Button” recalls “Forrest Gump” – they share a writer, Eric Roth – but this movie does not traffic in the mawkishness of “Gump.” There’s pathos, not bathos. What “Benjamin Button” does is make you consider the transitory nature of life, of the need to seize the moment, and live in the present, knowing that, well, no one gets out alive. It’s a long movie, nearly three hours, but it didn’t feel like it dragged. It takes its time, sure. There’s a wonderful sequence set in Paris, where Benjamin has gone to see her. As it happens, Daisy has suffered a terrible injury. Fincher shows how a series of coincidences lead to this event – the butterfly effect – and then gives us another fantasy sequence of how this might have been avoided, if only someone knew. But we never know. Fate, cruel or kind, is a great determinant in how we live our lives.
This is a movie that will leave you with much to ponder afterwards. Yes, there’s Benjamin’s curious case and all we have invested in him and his life. But you’ll be considering your own relationships and decisions you’ve made or will make. You may value your life a little bit more, try to waste fewer moments. Really. There is that kind of rare cinematic resonance. It’s playing everywhere. Tickets will run you $10 or so. Check the website below for particular theaters and times.

www.mrmovietimes.com