Fincher’s last film Zodiac is a masterpiece. There was no reason to expect anything less from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Sadly, it’s shockingly disappointing.

Benjamin Button follows the tribulations of an abandoned child who ages backwards and finds love in childhood playmate Daisy. It’s not an awful film (i.e. Seven Pounds), but there’s a resounding dullness that’s baffling, especially since the film looks beautiful. The subject matter is treated with such deadly seriousness that it begs the question, did Fincher or screenwriter Eric Roth read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, which is more hilarious fable than epic scientific documentation?

The Butchering of Fitzgerald’s Short Story

Roth discarded nearly every detail of Fitzgerald’s tale, including the humor. The first half of the story, in which Mr. Roger Button insists that his aged son play with children’s toys when all he wants to do is smoke cigars and read encyclopedias is a goldmine. There’s no backwards clock built in the throes of sorrow, Benjamin starts off big, his father doesn’t abandon him and there is no Daisy, there’s a Hildegarde.

In an interview on NPR in December, Fincher expressed how the subject of a love story was uninteresting to him, but the idea of death and mortality made him change his mind about making Button. But it never feels like the material ever truly inspired Fincher, and if he refers to Button as a love story that seems to suggest Fitzgerald’s tale isn’t on his mind. A man aging backwards can facilitate such a strange and humorous exploration of life and death, but Fincher’s film is utterly conventional. It would be amazing to see Terry Gilliam’s take on it.

Several times throughout the film the narrative is brought to a screeching halt by it’s disjointed flashback story telling, courtesy of a dying Daisy’s annoyingly shaky voice and her daughter (Julia Ormond) reading Benjamin’s diary. In the meantime, Hurricane Katrina is barreling into Lousiana. This is important…because they’re in Lousiana…and because…because.

A Familiar Scenario

The acting from Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt is serviceable but a bit cold. Benjamin is portrayed a bit slow, and Daisy becomes selfish and a little self-destructive. There’s just something so familiar about their relationship, all the missteps and unrequited love, all the letter writing…

And then the true culprit is revealed! Eric Roth wrote a little gem called Forrest Gump in 1994. He completely recycles his own ideas for this “screen story” but fails to recapture the magic a second time. The worst part about this retread is that everyone is totally buying it!

Overrated Performances

Both Pitt and Blanchett are great actors. They’re never going to be awful in anything, so when they’re ok in a poor film it seems Oscar worthy to people. Some critics have earnestly called this Pitt’s career best performance. Those individuals have failed to see the following films:

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Babel
Fight Club
Seven
12 Monkeys
Throw in Inglourious Basterds, and then pretty much ANYTHING else he’s been in.

No Love For a Squandered Button

Tim Roth aged backwards much more expertly in Francis Ford Coppola’s unfortunately flawed, but infinitely more intriguing Youth Without Youth. The overwhelming critical and awards season success of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has to be chalked up to luck and a significant amount of black magic. F. Scott Fitzgerald might roll over in his grave, but there’s nothing in this film to truly be moved by.