The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In 1922 F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote an unusual short story about Benjamin Button, who was born and old man and grew backwards, becoming younger every year. This unusual foray into science fantasy is whimsical and often humorous, but it has a melancholy aspect to it because Benjamen feels out of sync with the rest of the world. In this adaptation to the silver screen, the filmakers seized on that melancholy, and emphasized a line of romance that was almost nonexistent in the story.

Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born a full-grown man in the original story, which Fitzgerald never bothered to explain, but he is a miniature old man in the movie. His mother dies shortly after childbirth and his father abandons him outside an old folks home, leaving him to be raised by a young black woman who could not have children herself. The choice to set Benjamin's growing-up years in an old folks home works well for the movie, and we get to watch Benjamin learn about life from people about to depart it. While at the home he meets a little girl who will become the love of his life (Cate Blanchett). Their friendship and later romance are touching at times, but also turbulent as they struggle with the fact that he grows younger as she grows older.

The filmakers essentially gave the short story the Forrest Gump treatment, following Benjamin's life through two World Wars, multiple continents, and changing eras of American history. None of this is in the short story, of course, but it works well in the film. The make-up used on Brad Pit as an old man is quite good, and there are some very fine performances by Pitt, Blanchett, and Tilda Swinton.

My biggest complaint about the movie is that the story is largely told through the memories of his aged sweetheart as she dies of cancer in a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. This attempt at connecting the story to a recent and sensational event is unnecessary and distracting.There is also an attempt to explain why Benjamin grows backwards (something about a magic clock) but that's distracting too. F. Scott Fitzgerald never bothered to try to explain why Benjamin Button was the way he was; Fitzgerald was satisfied with taking his audience along with Benjamin's backward life.

The film's best moments are ones that capture that fantastical melancholy of the story. The most bittersweet of these is when Benjamin dies as an infant in the arms of the old woman who once was his lover. I sat thinking about the movie for a long time after the credits started to roll.

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Wives and Daughters

The BBC works its magic again with another excellent miniseries, this time brining Elizabeth Gaskell's novel Wives and Daughters to the screen. I admit I had never read any of Gaskell's work before seeing the movie, and her only books I knew of were Cranford and North and South. Having happily corrected my ignorance, I will soon be adding some Gaskell novels to my summer reading list.

The main character, Molly Gibson, lives with her widowed father. He remarries a woman with a daughter close to Molly's age, introducing a new mother and a new daughter to the family. It's interesting to see a film explore how two families settle together as one family, with plenty of conflicts and struggles along the way. Mrs. Gibson is at once sly and naive, but always in pursuit of her own selfish interests. Her daughter from her first marriage, Cynthia, has some of the same selfishness, but Molly becomes a good influence on her and she often works against her mother's will. Along the way the Gibsons become involved in the drama of their wealthy neighbors, the Hamleys, who have two handsome sons. It is inevitable in such a story that romance would blossom, but it doesn't happen quite like you would expect it, and that's what makes it so much fun.

If you like period pieces or human-driven stories, I highly recommend Wives and Daughters. It has some very funny dialogue, quite a few excellent performances, and very well-developed characters. Even if you can't stand the better-known Jane Austen film adaptations, Wives and Daughters is worth a try because it doesn't delve into the sappy as much, and it has some great mysteries and plot twists.
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