Daisy (Cate Blanchett) is an old woman on her death bed telling her daughter (Julia Ormond) to read her the diary of a dear friend, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt.) Benjamin’s tale begins with a man who invented a clock that tells time backwards, in hopes that he could reverse the march of time and undo his son’s recent death in WWI. Unconnected to that story line and shortly after, a baby is born with the face and body of a little old man – complete with cataracts and arthritis – prematurely old. When his father doesn’t want him, he leave the ugly baby on the doorstep of a senior home where he’s adopted by the caretaker, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson). She names him Benjamin. As the old man/baby grows backwards – getting younger and younger – we grow sadly less interested. Benjamin is more of a curiosity than a character, so the story never quite grips us. Events unfold, but we watch them without experiencing them – events like his love for a little girl, Daisy, who eventually turns into the adult, Cate Blanchett. As she forwards and he ages backwards, they finally meet in the middle and a love story can begin. Fortunately he turns into Brad Pitt just about the time you were going to act on that deal you made with the theater manager , the one that allows you to vacuum popcorn from the lobby whenever you’re bored. The story continues to flash back to the present-day old woman narrating from her New Orleans hospital bed as Hurricane Katrina approaches and the staff must consider vacating. And while she’s reminiscent of old women of past movies – part “Titanic,” part “The Notebook” – she’s more part ‘disaster’ with her zombie looks and annoying, raspy voice. Makes you wonder why they couldn’t make her a likable and attractive old lady. This is, afterall, a movie. Aren’t we supposed to care about her? The idea of somebody having the knowledge of age with the looks of youth, and the look of age with the innocence of youth, is fantastic, but as Pitt’s clock ticked backwards, mine inched forward all too slowly. As far as time goes, this movie is a total waste of it. Two tiaras
