MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated PG-13
166 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

2008 Academy Award Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actress (Taraji P. Henson), Best Director (David Fincher), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Art Direction (WIN!), Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects (WIN!), Best Makeup (WIN!), Best Sound

At once epic in scope and intimate in detail, David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is certainly the director's most emotional film to date. Loosely based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, this romantic drama tells the tale of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), born in 1918 in New Orleans as a baby with wrinkles, cataracts, and arthritis. Benjamin will age backwards, getting younger as he watches those around him growing older. Included in that group are his adoptive mother, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), and Daisy (Cate Blanchett), the love of his life whom he meets when she is just a little girl and he is an old man. They age in reverse, but despite Benjamin's globe-trotting adventures, their lives repeatedly intersect. The script from Oscar winner Eric Roth bears more than a few hallmarks in common with his earlier work on Forrest Gump: both adaptations cross decades and continents. But Benjamin's script or even the fine acting aren't its most impressive accomplishment; the technology--both CGI and makeup--used to make Benjamin and Daisy age is remarkable, and makes the film entirely believable, and it's certainly aided by fine performances from both Pitt and Blanchett. The triumph of technology only serves to underscore the beauty of this film and of the love story at its heart. [www.rottentomatoes.com]

A magical and moving account of a man living his life resoundingly in reverse, very loosely based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald short tale from 1922, it delivers top-notch moviemaking in every department.
      -- Peter Howell, Toronto Star. Read this review.