Pun Salad

At IMDB, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is rated #177 on the Top 250 movies of all time. It got 13 Oscar nominations (including Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), and Best Actor (Brad Pitt), winning three. (I would have thrown Cate Blanchett in there too, but that's me.)

But just hearing about the premise of the movie made me doubtful: that's it? Benjamin, unlike most of us, is born old, his mother dying at his birth, and grows younger, year after year. Yes, that's it.

But it's a yarn exceedingly well-told, from the end of World War I up to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The main plot thread involves Benjamin's love affair with Daisy, complicated by the fact that she's aging normally. But there's a wealth of rich period detail, colorful characters, and adventure, as Benjamin grows up (or, I guess, grows down).

There might be Deep Lessons buried in the movie somewhere, but (as near as I can tell) it's pretty homespun: when life hands you lemons, make lemonade, quit your bitching, say yes to opportunities, and so on. You can ignore this and enjoy the story.

It's very long, two hours and thirty-five minutes, but engrossing.