The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Director: David Fincher

Benjamin Button's tale is a very curious one indeed and, at 166 minutes, it's a bum-number. Whatever you come out of it thinking, it's an exquisite story of love, fate and death. We follow Button (Brad Pitt), born in 1918 looking like an old man, on his journey through life as he ages backwards. It seems quite a simple story but the issues the film is dealing with are poignant and meaningful to all of us. We're all going to lose the people we love, whether we like it or not. As one character says, death makes us realise how much we loved those people and will miss them.

The key relationship in Button is Benjamin's love of Daisy (Cate Blanchett) - he meets her when he is 12 (an old man in his 'outer' form) and Daisy is six. People around them naturally think that their playful relationship is a little odd. As Benjamin grows up and becomes physically younger, he joins a tugboat crew and catches up with Daisy again when she is 21 and a successful ballet dancer. She is too swept up in her twenties and lifestyle to take much notice of him. A devastating accident brings Benjamin to Daisy's bedside and she finally comes to him when they are the 'perfect' comparable age, falling passionately in love. This made me bawl and the tears did not stop as the film rapidly becomes a tear-jerker, as Benjamin once again becomes physically childlike in his old age and Daisy ages. There is a selfless act by Benjamin where he has to leave Daisy and she then returns to him to care for him in his 'young form'; they lay together in bed, Benjamin as a child and Daisy as a pensioner, a beautiful symbolism of how in our old age we are childlike once again and depend on care and love.

The story is told through the narration of Daisy's daughter Caroline, who reads from Benjamin's diary at Daisy's death bed. It's one of those films that sweeps you up in its grandness with its engaging characters, subplots and emotional scenes. It's certainly a film that will stay with me for some time and it makes you feel wonderful to be alive.
5/5