Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This movie was of course based on the book, as most good movies are. It tells the entire life of Benjamin Button, and is eerily similar to Forest Gump. The movie starts off at a close-up of an old woman on her deathbed in a hospital in 2005. By her side is her daughter in her mid-thirties.

In the background you can hear heavy rain and wind slamming on the window (later in the movie it is revealed that they are actually in the midst of hurricane Katrina). The daughter opens a book she finds in her mother's purse. The book happens to be a diary of Benjamin Button.

The mother asks her daughter to read it aloud, and so the daughter does. As she starts, it fades to the setting of her words, and the movie begins. Benjamin Button starts off as an infant with an unclear past. He has the facial features and wrinkles that of an elderly man. He is left on a doorstep and is later found and raised by a woman named Queenie. The movie goes on, telling of the struggles Ben has to face, and the extraordinary events he witnesses (again, much like Forest Gump).

The movie ends with a beautiful moral about the diversity of human beings, and the importance of memory. This movie is quite long though, it runs 166 minutes. It spent a lot of time using pauses to render dramatic effects. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but only when used to a certain extent. I give this movie a 9/10.