The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

This movie has 'wonderful' written all over it. In big, iridescent, strangely hypnotic calligraphy. Flowing back and forth in time, across vast continents and epic journeys of the heart.

The sunsets alone make me want to go out and pay £557 for the latest version of Photoshop. Ballet scenes awaken cultural yearnings I never knew I had. And sunlight reflected so perfectly on the water tells me to bin my wall-hangings of Bali and buy stills from the film instead. And there are so many stars. Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, for starters, not to mention real actors like Tilda Swinton, who provides a wonderful exposition on the correct way to consume vodka and caviar. I’m overwhelmed with wonderfulness. More dosh and talent have been spent on wonderful period pieces than the mere $zillions in China’s trade surplus, or that Barack Obama could think up to rescue the banks of all the known universe.

You know what I’m going to say. “Why have they put so much into creating such dreary, mind-numbing twaddle?” So I won’t say it. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is not boring. Not if you get the right cinema snacks. Rather than butter or salt, you might like a light sprinkling of mogadon on your popcorn. I’m not saying Benjamin is over-rich, over-seasoned, and has miniscule nourishment value. I’m shouting it. Unlike Brad Pitt, the numbness in my sclerotic extremities got worse as the film progressed. I tried hard to concentrate on the wonderful scenery. Even the non-existent mountains in Florida Keys. Characters would slowly intone bits of piffle as if pointing to a profound mystery that I would truly love once I saw the error of my ways.

A posh hairdresser once told me that the human head sheds on average 130 hairs a week. That’s 3980 in six months. And a staggering 57,420 over five years. He had a product that slowed down the hair loss and everyone at the company where I worked bought some. Until a clever guy pointed out that the figures don’t actually add up...

I’m sure Benjamin Button is a reincarnation of that hairdresser. Helped along by a not inconsequential budget. So is it any wonder, in this post-festivities, pre-Oscar haze, that no one stops to think about the plot very carefully? The story is a charming fairy tale for grown-ups. A fantasy opens (after obligatory diary flashbacks) with an ugly wailing brat called Benjamin. He’s born in 1918 as World War One ends, with Progeria Syndrome, a rare illness that makes young people look old and decrepit. As he grows, the disease unexpectedly declines, leaving him young and tanned. This is very helpful for visiting brothels, having sex with a diplomat’s wife, living on the ocean wave, and generally being an exceptionally fit Brad Pitt - no longer enduring five hours of make-up before filming.

Tilda Swinton’s performance, as the diplomat-come-spy’s wife, is exceptional, but dangerous in that it could put your brain in gear. Because just as it gets a shred of credibility, we need to put both hands into that mogadon-coated popcorn. Button-brains Mr Pitt is now getting younger and younger. Till he’s a demented five-year-old who should be buttoned up the back.

If you are even half awake in this three-hour marathon, you will maybe notice something is wrong here. We’re supposed to have deep thoughts on things like the timelessness of love. But the plot inherently denies the very idea of which it is trying to convince us.

Benjamin to Daisy (Cate Blanchett): “I was thinking that nothing lasts, and what a shame that is.” Daisy: “Some things last!” But of course they can’t possibly last. Not in Benjamin’s case or that of anyone involved with him. They are ships in the night, sailing to the strains of beautiful jazz in (eg) artfully decorated whorehouses. He gets young as they get old, and age differences cut everyone off.

Someone once said, “Always speak as if quoting the truth.” Benji and his friends speak as if quoting deep, mystical truth. Like converts at the revivalist meeting, like willing dupes at the stage hypnotist’s gala performance, we ogle the exquisite sets, lap up the bland but well-spoken lines and go, “Yeah!”

Believing it is better than fidgeting when the tedium is excessively long, I’ll admit. I’d just rather not, thank you. Benji is dishonest salesmanship at its most egregious. You can see them looking at a business plan and knowing people will swallow it. And if the Academy give Benji lots of Oscars (other than for art production and purely technical things), well shame on them!

Even half-decent lines are shorn of all meaning. Mrs Maple saying, “We’re meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?” This idea is nice, and is exquisitely worked out in Stephen Daldry’s great film, The Hours. But Benjamin Button defaces it. No one crosses paths long enough to experience true love. Benji and Mrs Spy have it off cos she’s bored. It being his first kiss, he’s in lust. Blanchett and Benji reject each other. Until an accident delivers her to him long enough to get pregnant. Instead of being lovable they are bland wish-fantasies at best, lovingly enshrined with a halo of technical light and colour.

I’ve not read the original story by F Scott Fitzgerald. I am guessing it might be better - and much shorter. Perhaps we will get a superior rendition of ‘love though time’ when the film version of Audrey Niffenegger bestseller The Time Traveller’s Wife is released. Benjamin Button, on the other hand, is a curious collection of bankable talent that is more sales pitch than substance.

Sadly, the most curious thing about this stylish piece of nonsense is that, like the world being created in seven days, enough people will passionately defend it all the way to the Awards. And in some tardis-like distortion of time and common sense, maybe that means they enjoy it and I’m wrong.