Ill-Informed Gadfly

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is an odd and fey movie that insists on its profundity and emotional heft. It goes so far as to graft Hurricane Katrina onto an already unwieldy plot in a bid to amplify its themes of impermanence and mortality. Director David Fincher brings a delicate, lingering melancholy to the tale of a man who is born old and ages in reverse. He pours his considerable visual gifts into Benjamin’s fleeting moments of bliss and agony, which by all rights ought to provoke similar feelings in the audience. The movie is so well-made that you’ll want to be moved. But I didn’t feel much of anything. Benjamin Button is born, a bunch of stuff happens to him, and he dies, and all the while it’s hard to see him as much more than what the title suggests: a curiosity. His reverse aging remains inexplicable, and it’s difficult to comprehend his experience: He operates at a remove, isolated and strange. Brad Pitt clearly has a grand old time playing a naïve old man and a wise young man, with the aid of makeup and digital manipulation that’s remarkable for its seamlessness. Cate Blanchett, oddly, comes off as haughty and superficial as Benjamin’s ballet-dancer sweetheart. Both speak with mannered Southern accents, and their characters are too diffuse to anchor such a sprawling story. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” ambles along for two hours and 40 minutes, never boring but rarely intense. You’ll leave as puzzled as you were at the start.