THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Visually arresting but woefully short on substance David Fincher's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story about a man who ages backward is like a parlor game that wears out its welcome.

 

Great CGI pains were gone to in creating Brad Pitt's physical bearing as Benjamin Button, a baby born in 1861 as an old man who sees the world before his condition catches up with him.

The death of Benjamin's mother during childbirth causes Benjamin's wealthy father Thomas to abandon the baby on the doorstep of a New Orleans retirement home run by a kind woman named Queenie (played by Taraji P. Henson).

 

 

Benjamin's urbane demeanor inspires Our reliably unreliable protagonist falls in love with a young girl named Daisy to whom he will eventually return when their ages intersect.

 

 

Eric Roth (the screenwriter for the unwatchable "Forest Gump") can't refrain from a steady stream of platitudes that substitute for any actual philosophically or ideologically-charged viewpoint. Benjamin Button might seem like a rocket scientist compared to Forest Gump, but he's still a glorified idiot savant.    

 

Rated PG-13. 167 mins.