THE MOVIE PAGES presents BRAD PIIT & CATE BLANCHETT in tccoBENJAMINBUTTON.htm

What Do The Critics Say?

"David Fincher has done it once again: he has reconfirmed his position as one of the great filmmakers working today and given us a film that is sure to go down as an instant classic."
Peter Sobczynski EFILMCRITIC
"It's a speculative and enthralling fantasy about what it would be like to age in reverse."
Sandra Hall SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
"Contemplative, sumptuous and haunting, this is one of the year's best films."
Kevin Williamson JAM! MOVIES
"Is Benjamin Button the best film of the year? I'm not sure, but it is definitely good enough to be."
Matthew Razak L.A. EXAMINER
"A symphony in the language of film. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is simultaneously uplifting, devastating, and achingly human."
Dustin Putman THE MOVIE GUY "Set mostly in New Orleans, Button’s story is framed by the first brunt of Hurricane Katrina where Daisy, near death, has daughter Caroline read her Benjamin’s diary. More than a love story, Button is a eulogy for the 20th Century."
Amy Nicholson INLAND EMPIRE WEEKLY

"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
"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a monumental achievement: not only one of the best films of the year, but one of the greatest films ever made."
Rex Reed NEW YORK OBSERVER
"It'll take two and a half hours of your life and still make you feel younger."
Alex Markerson E! ONLINE
"One of the most beautiful love stories set to screen in a very long time."
Brandon Fibbs CHRISTIANITY TODAY
"It tells a grand, eloquent tale full of romance and melancholy."
Eric D Snider ERICDSNIDER.COM
" I am not exaggerating when I say this is one of the best to come out in years. It is perfect in every aspect of filmmaking, i.e. acting, directing, pacing, editing, make-up, set design, special effects."
Kevin McCarthy CBS RADIO

The Inside Story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" began its life as a short story written in the 1920s by F Scott Fitzgerald ("The Great Gatsby"), who, in turn, drew his own inspiration from a quote by Mark Twain: "Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18." Peabody Award winner Fitzgerald's story was a caprice, a find of fancy, and bringing it to life on the screen was long perceived as too ambitious, too fantastical to accomplish. The project floated around for some fourty odd years until producers Kathleen Kennedy and, 1989 David di Donatello 'David' award winner Frank Marshall ("Who Shot Roger Rabbit") took it up. For over a decade, the project has likewise intrigued Eric Roth, David Fincher and 1996 Golden Globe winner Brad Pitt ("Twelve Monkeys"). For Roth, the concept became an opportunity to introspectively view the broad canvas of a life through the synthesis of intimate moments experienced every day, through events that may be as large as a world war or as small as a kiss. "Eric was the ideal person to fully realize the potential of such a large-scale but deeply personal story," 2003 Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award, Kathleen Kennedy notes. "In 'Forrest Gump', he revealed intimate portraits against the backdrop of epic stories, and a gift for richly observed detail." The chance to live life backwards would seem ideal. "But it’s not that simple," says 1995 Oscar ® winner Roth ("Forrest Gump"). "On the surface, you think it would be just lovely, but it is a different kind of life, which I think is so compelling about this story. Even though Benjamin is going backwards, the first kiss and the first love are still as significant and meaningful to him. It doesn’t make any difference whether you live your life backwards or forwards: it’s how you live your life." While conceiving and writing the screenplay, Roth experienced the personal loss of both of his parents Leon & Mimi. "Their deaths were obviously very painful for me, and gave me a different perspective on things," he notes. "I think people will respond to the same things in this story that I responded to." The movie explores the human condition that exists outside of time and age: the joys of life and love and the sadness of loss. "David and I both wanted it to feel as if this was anybody’s story," Samuel Goldwyn Screenwriting Award winner Roth says. "It’s just a man’s life: that’s what’s sort of extraordinary about the movie and very ordinary at the same time. What affects this odd character affects everyone." Producer Céan Chaffin ("Fight Club") recalls that the project had long been circling around Fincher, away from him and back. An earlier version of the screenplay sat on his desk when Chaffin started working with him in 1992. "It was something he loved and kept bringing up over the years," she recalls. Chaffin also remember when Brad asked him about it. "Scripts come and go, but this script never left," she notes. "He says things go away for the right reasons and you can’t have regrets. This one must have had the right reasons to stay." Fincher’s own experience of loss infused his fascination with the story. "My father died five years ago, and I remember the experience of being there when he breathed his last breath," the 2004 DGA Award winner reflects. "It was an incredibly profound one. You’re no longer trying to please someone, or you’re no longer reacting against something. In many ways, you’re truly alone." The film would be an ambitious jump, posing dramatic and technical challenges.

"How do you deftly and succinctly create the experience of a life, with all its dips and peaks, from grave to cradle, within a single film?" muses two time Christopher Award winner Kennedy ("Empire of the Sun" 1997 & "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" 2008). "In Eric's script, each moment accrues emotions that resonate with you later on. Cheating that sensibility would diminish the experience, so we knew from the beginning that it would take time to project the experience of a whole life." For Pitt, the only way to play the character was all the way through, at every age, which posed one of the film’s most daunting challenges. "Brad was only interested in playing the part if he could play the character through the totality of his life," 2008 National Board of Review Award winner Fincher ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") explains. "Kathy and Frank were more than mildly curious how we were going to do that." So what did he tell them? "I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out." To share the screen opposite Pitt, Fincher cast Oscar ® winner Cate Blanchett. The director had Blanchett on his mind since catching her performance in "Elizabeth". "I remember going to the Sunset 5." Fincher's reaction to her performance was "Who is that? My goodness. You just don’t see people who have that kind of power and ability every day of the week." Pitt revealed 1997 & 2005 AFI winner Blanchett "elevated most of our performances. She’s exquisite. She’s a great friend. She can read a scene like few actors can. I find her to be grace incarnate. I liked that she was playing a dancer. It fit her because of who she is, because of her undeniable elegance." The relationship between her character Daisy and Benjamin evolves as she comes to understand and learns to live with his preternatural circumstances. "Cate embodies this woman, who has to make peace with the idea of growing older while the person she loves is on the backward path," notes Roth. "What does life become for her then? She goes from being an impetuous, passionate dancer to a woman with deep reserves of strength." Daisy is one of many figures that come into contact with Benjamin. "Benjamin is like a cue ball and all the people he collides with leave marks on him," says Fincher ("Panic Room" & "Zodiac"). "That’s what a life is: a collection of these dents and scratches. They are what make him who he is and not anyone else." "I like this idea of dents," adds Pitt. "People make an impact and leave some kind of an impression. There's something very poetic and accepting about that." The role presented Pitt with a complex challenge unlike any he has faced in a film. "Despite the obvious physical demands the role placed on Brad as an actor, the trick was playing a character that listens and is present and reactive to everyone in the movie," says two time BAFTA winning actress Blanchett ("Elizabeth" 1999 & "The Aviator" 2005). "It’s perhaps the stillest performance Brad has ever given," Fincher added. Benjamin’s adoptive mother, Queenie, who caretakes Nolan House, a retirement home, tells him throughout his life, "You never know what’s coming for you." Taraji P. Henson was pegged for the role of Queenie long before the film came to fruition, when Fincher’s casting director, Laray Mayfield, steered the director toward her Black Reel Award winning performance as Shug in "Hustle and Flow." "We were all taken with how alive and maternal she was," Fincher recalls. "I found all the warmth, all the non-judgmental aspects of Queenie, in Taraji." "She’s a woman who knows how to deal with death," says Henson. The character Queenie, spoke to Henson(who played Sharice Watters in "Smokin' Aces"), on an intensely personal level.

"It’s been a very spiritual journey for me," she revealed. "I had just lost my father, and even though I miss him dearly, it’s almost as if his death was a part of my journey towards Queenie. When my father was sick, we made sure that he was never alone; someone was always at his bedside. He passed away while I was with him because he knew I could handle it. This role helped me through my grief and my grief helped shape my performance. Art can be very healing." Benjamin first meets Daisy when they are both children and she comes to visit her grandmother at Nolan House. Daisy sees through the exterior of his elderly handicaps to the child beneath. "One of the linchpins of the piece is how their lives coincide and differ," says Roth ("The Horse Whisperer"). "This relationship evolves as they grow and change, with all the missed and found opportunities in between." While everyone around him is growing older, Benjamin is growing younger, all alone. "Every person he meets is transient," Fincher notes, adding " every moment with them could be his last." Mahershalalhashbaz Ali (who played Dr Trey Sanders in TV'S "Crossing Jordan") notes: "Benjamin aging backwards only makes him more aware that you can’t hold onto things. He knows that you have things for a certain amount of time, and then you have to be okay with letting go. You can take what you can from it while it’s here, but it’s never yours." Ali plays Tizzy Weathers, Queenie’s longtime love and one of Benjamin’s first 'fathers'. "Tizzy is kind of a flag post, a barometer for his manhood. He teaches him to read and to write; he teaches him about Shakespeare. But I think he mostly leaves him with a sense of what a man is." 1998 Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival Best Actor winner Jared Harris ("Trance") plays grizzled tug boat operator Captain Mike, who reveals his secret self through the map of tattoos covering his body. Harris describes his character as "sort of a thwarted, frustrated, drunk, angry failed artist, in a way. He went into his family business because he couldn’t stand up to his own father. Your father is a tremendously powerful figure in your life. Captain Mike introduces Benjamin, in that sort of bad father/uncle way, to the vices and pleasures of life. He also introduces him to a life at sea, and through that life, Benjamin gets to see the world." Bejamin's real father Thomas Button, is played by Jason Flemyng ("Layer Cake" & "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels"). "In a strange way, after losing his wife in childbirth, Thomas believes he’s ridding himself of all the heartache by leaving his son behind, but in fact, he spends the rest of his life regretting that act. It haunts him forever." 2008 Oscar ® winning actress Tilda Swinton ("Michael Clayton") was cast as Elizabeth Abbott, a diplomats wife who harbors dreams of swimming across the English Channel. Abbott provides Benjamin's first kiss. "They each learn something from the other," 1991 Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup winner Swinton ("Edward II" ) says. "She is open, energetic and self-searching; he is patience, simplicity, and optimism. It is a fair exchange." Swinton describes Fincher as being "like a child in a sandbox. Wonder seems never very far away for him." Pitt agress adding, "David is like a man possessed. The great reward is that you have this finely sculpted piece at the end. He is a sculptor." "Every choice he made was perfect and so rewarding," says Marshall. The film was shot on location in Montreal, the Caribbean, and New Orleans. Synopsis

"I was born under unusual circumstances." And so begins the story of one Benjamin Button. A curious tale about a man who at birth, is born in his eighties and ages backwards: a man, like any of us, who is unable to stop time. His mother has died in child-birth, and those who have witnessed the event are either horrified or mystified. He's the size of a normal baby, but appears quite deformed, while his skin is wrinkled and old. His father, Mr Button, is already distraught. He takes the newborn, rushes from the house and heads for the river where he intends to drown the little one. Interrupted by a patroling police officer, he flees, hoping to escape capture. Evading the law and in the dark of night, he comes across a house. Here he leaves the baby on steps leading to the front porch. Queenie, the owner, hears the babies cry and takes him in. He may be very ugly but every child deserves love.

The Verdict "Truly a remarkable journey. The story of Benjamin Button is a combination of all things that make for a great cinema experience. Both the premiss and the storyline are fascinating. The cast are all, with out a doubt, superb. The characters they bring to life are indeed rich reflections (with the exception of Benjamin) of life I'm sure everyone will relate to. The standouts are undoubtedly Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Taraji P Henson and Jason Flemyng. The film is punctuated with a beautiful score composed by Alexandre Desplat who in 2007 picked up a BMI Film Music Award for "The Queen" & a Golden Globe for "The Painted Veil". Marvellous. 5 STARS." Crew Bytes "THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON" was .......
Directed by 1996 International Fantasy Film Award winner David Fincher ["Fight Club" and "The Game"]; screenplay by 2006 Hollywood Film Festival Screenwriter of the Year Eli Roth ["Ali", "Munich" and "Lucky You"]; set decoration by Victor J. Zolfo ["Godzilla", "The Thirteenth Floor" and "Mr & Mrs Smith"]; costume design by Jacqueline West ["Rising Sun", "Quills" and "The Banger Sisters"]; production design by Donald Graham Burt ["The Joy Luck Club", "Donnie Brasco" and "It Might Get Loud"]; casting by Laray Mayfield ["Do Geese See God?", "The Incredible Hulk" and "The Killing Room"]; cinematography by Claudio Miranda ["The Angel Of Chilside Road", "A Thousand Roads" and "Failure to Launch"]; original music by Alexandre Desplat ["Girl with a Pearl Earring", "Birth" and "The Golden Compass"]. Who's Who

Brad Pitt
Tom Everett
Robert Towers
Peter Donald Badalamenti II
Spencer Daniels
Chandler Canterbury
Charles Henry Wyson
Cate Blanchett
Madisen Beaty
Elle Fanning
Taraji P Henson
Julia Ormond
Jared Harris
Tilda Swinton
Faune A Chambers
Elias Koteas
Donna DuPlantier
Jason Flemyng
Joeanna Sayler
Jacob Wood
Ed Metzger
Mahershalalhashbaz Ali
Fiona Hale
Patrick Thomas O'Brien
Marion Zinser
Myrton Running Wolf
Paula Gray
Lance E. Nichols
Rampai Mohadi
Troi Bechet
Phyllis Somerville
Ted Manson
Clay Cullen
Edith Ivey

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Benjamin Button
Benjamin 1935-37
Benjamin 1932-34
Benjaminn 1928-31
Benjamin (Age 12)
Benjamin (Age 8)
Benjamin (Age 6)
Daisy
Daisy (Age 10)
Daisy (Age 7)
Queenie
Caroline
Captain Mike
Elizabeth Abbott
Dorothy Baker
Monsieur Gateau
Blanche Devereaux
Thomas Button
Mrs Button
Martin Gateau
Teddy Roosevelt
Tizzy
Mrs Hollister
Dr Rose
Mrs Horton
Dennis Smith
Sybil Wagner
The Preacher
Ngunda Oti
Filamena Gilea
Grandma Fuller
Mr Daws
Young Mr Daws
Mrs Maple