The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

3/4 stars

So, a year or two ago, sometime before there was a separate article on Wikipedia for this movie, I was wasting time on said website, and found my way to the article on the short story upon which the movie is based. It's a strange coincidence that a story written long before I was born should be made into an acclaimed film within such a short time of my reading it. Or maybe not. Anyway, this film shouldn't really be compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story; the overlap of a few significant details only confuses the fact that they are different stories that serve different purposes.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a long film, in the best sense. I commented back in 2006 (in response to, among others, Casino Royale, a 2.5 hour Bond movie) that my attention span for a movie is closer to three hours than two. That was probably an overstatement, but two hour movies do sometimes feel a little slight, and I'm happy to grant a third hour of my time to a film that has a good use for it. I'm also fond of movies that have a slow enough pace that, like a novel, you can see distinct sections in them, begin to feel comfortable with a sense of status quo before the events of the film disrupt it. It sounds odd to refer to a movie that spans 85 years as slow-paced, but pacing isn't about how a movie gets through narrative time, it's about how it gets from the beginning to the end. A long movie, when it's good, allows several episodes their appropriate weight and consideration. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a long, sweeping story, with all the complexity and craftsmanship that that entails. It will draw you in and keep you emotionally engaged with what you're seeing for its entire two and three quarter hours.

CCBB (yeah, I just did that) is the story of two lives, and how they are shared. Both Benjamin Button (portrayed by Brad Pitt with a generous amount of soft spoken charm) and Daisy Fuller (portrayed mostly by Cate Blanchett, although Elle Fanning also has a memorable scene) are old when the film begins. She is looking back from her deathbed on him looking forward into an uncertain future. "I was born old," he says simply at one point. As you no doubt are aware, Benjamin is aging backwards, which makes sharing his life with someone else a tricky proposition. You may also have some idea from the ads, what their solution is ("we meet in the middle"). They both have interesting and eventful lives, and the way the world changes around them is what gives the film its massive scope. I especially liked the symmetry of having the film end on the eve of Hurricane Katrina, suggesting the story of city as well as everything else.

I stated last week that the number of Academy Award nominations for this film surprised me. Now I find it interesting to consider how it seems to be an amalgamation of various past Oscar favorites. I think a lot of viewers will notice that it smacks of Forrest Gump, an unusual man with soft spoken Southern charm. Also, what does that recurring hummingbird motif remind you of? The special effects used to allow Brad Pitt to inhabit various ages of the character reminded me of The Lord of the Rings and its hobbits. It even becomes Magnolia for a minute, in an ill advised car crash sequence. If you want to know why I think this is a good but not a great movie, it's that. Yes it entertained me, yes it engaged me, yes it earned the time it took to watch it, and I would watch it again. But I don't think it's the year's best film. As the hasty and underdeveloped coda ("some people get struck by lightning") suggests, it's a good story, but at the end seems to strain to have been about something. It's trying too hard; its fairytale elements are a bit too earnest, its protagonist too purely good. In short, it is wondrous, but it is not curious.

Michael Clayton

4/4 stars

My first impulse when I began writing this review was to praise Clooney's performance, but it dawned on me that any attempt to do so is regrettably compromised by the fact I have yet to see some of the work he is most reknowned for, an oversight that I am now hastened to remedy. In the meantime though, I will say that this is the best performance I have ever seen George Clooney give. His forceful yet measured persona stands in contrast to the manic, loquacious realization that Tom Wilkinson provides for the best supporting role of 2007; and both are effective enough to stand out in a movie that is superb on many levels. While it doesn't deliver a particularly strong emotional punch, Michael Clayton is powerful in its technique and its gripping plot. As the end credits begin to roll, the camera stays with the title character, seemingly not wanting to look away. I sympathized; the writing here is so crisp, the direction so mesmerizing that I didn't want the movie to end. For the first time since last year's The Departed, I found a movie that I immediately wanted to watch again.

Written February 20, 2008.

Constantine

3/4 stars

Keanu Reeves is at the same calibre of acting here as he was in The Matrix films. I mean that as a compliment, I don't have much patience for the unfair singling out of Keanu as a bad actor that's so popular. He has his troublesome moments (and with bad editing, that can happen to anyone) but he's still a head and shoulders above plenty of vacant, good-looking people in Hollywood. The action is also on the same level as the aforementioned trilogy, with some stylistic differences. I found the world of the movie, its use of Catholicism as a mythological backdrop both startling and engrossing. On the negative side though, the supporting cast could use a bit more depth and development, and the story seems more complicated than it really is at times due to muddled delivery. This movie encourages the audience to think, but the sheer spectacle at times seems to act as a reward for not doing so. Still, a gripping and inventive film.

Written March 26, 2008.