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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button   was one of the most anticipated movies upon its release in 2008. Even though it's been well over a decade since it hit the screens, the film still remains one of David Fincher's greatest masterpieces, snatching three Academy Awards and countless other wins and nominations.

Related:  David Fincher's Movies, Ranked By Rotten Tomatoes

Arguably one of the most complex and intriguing films to ever be made, the movie is full of tiny little nods and Easter eggs even the most avid fans might have missed. Comprised of such a stellar cast, phenomenal production, and a masterful soundtrack, it's easy to understand how some details may have gone unnoticed. With this in mind, let's take a look at 10 things you've never noticed from  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

A Talented Cast

Some movies are made great because of its directors, other because of its storylines. When it comes to  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , several factors came into place in order to make it such a critically-acclaimed piece. But one that certainly deserves attention and praise is the cast.

Viewers surely knew Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, but they weren't the only stars in the cast. In fact, the movie includes two other Oscar winners aside from Pitt and Blanchett ⁠—  Tilda Swinton and Mahershala Ali. Plus, one Oscar nominee thanks to the movie itself, Taraji P. Henson.

Backwards Hints

Obviously, the main theme of the movie is time moving backwards for the title character, who was born looking like an old man, and whose appearance becomes younger and younger as time passes. Several nods and details were added to the movie in order to emphasize this very theme.

For instance, hummingbirds, who can fly backwards, and hurricanes, that spin counter-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, are some of the details regarding the backwards time theme that were included throughout the movie.

A Nod To Fight Club

David Fincher was far from being an unknown director when the time came to take on  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Some of his best known and more acclaimed works include  Se7en  and  Fight Club , which coincidentally featured Brad Pitt as the main actor.

Related:  10 Most Memorable Quotes From Fight Club

It's not unheard of for directors to give subtle nods to their previous work in recent movies. And that's exactly what happened with Fincher, who decided to include a reference to  Fight Club  when Benjamin's dad asks about "the house on Paper Street," which was the mansion where Tyler Durden lived in.

Years In The Making

When a movie reaches theaters, audiences don't pay much thought to all the work that had to be put into it before it even comes to fruition. In reality, many ideas and projects remain under development for years before they finally see the light of day, which is exactly what happened with  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The movie began development all the way back in 1994, and many stars were set to be involved. For instance, in 1998, Ron Howard was supposed to direct, and John Travolta was supposed to play the main character. Eventually, these titles shifted to Fincher and Pitt.

We See You, Scott

Many people might not realize this, but  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button  is based upon a short story by famous American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald penned many of the greatest novels in American history, including  The Great Gatsby  and  The Beautiful And Damned.

As such, it would make sense that at least one reference or nod was made to the beloved author somewhere in the movie. This reference can be found when Benjamin is reading a novel, and a picture of the author's short story "Winter Dreams" is clearly visible. We see you, Scott, we see you!

The love story between Daisy and Benjamin is perhaps one of the most complex, tragic, and beautiful to ever be portrayed on screen. It's hard to imagine being in their shoes and loving someone who will never be able to walk the path of life at the same rhythm as you. Many subtle references to this are made throughout the movie.

Perhaps the most interesting one is when Daisy meets Benjamin for the second time and talks to him about "kismet." This might seem confusing, but "kismet" is actually an English word of Turkish origin that means "predestined fate."

Mark Twain Said It First

It's always good to know where the inspiration for a certain piece of art came from. Was it a random stranger on the street? An impactful life event? Or another piece of art in itself? Obviously,  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button  is inspired by Fitzgerald's story of the same name. But where exactly did he draw inspiration from?

Well, according to the author himself, the idea to write the short story originated from a quote by none other than Mark Twain himself. And it goes like this: "It is a pity that the best part of life comes at the beginning, and the worst part at the end."

Overall, the movie starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett stays pretty true to the original source material. Everybody knows that it can be quite complicated to translate a written piece onto the screen, but the team behind  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button  did a pretty great job overall.

The biggest change comes in the form of Blanchett's character, Daisy, who's called Hildegarde Moncrief in the story. The name change is probably another nod to Fitzgerald and his novel  The Great Gatsby , which features Daisy as the lead female character.   Plus, Daisy just sounds a lot better than Hildegarde, so win-win situation for everyone!

A Punny Sailboat

We always love some well-thought-out puns when it comes to movies and television. And especially in a movie as tragic and dramatic as  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , some comedic relief is welcome with open arms ⁠— even if you really have to look to see it.

In this case, it's all about Benjamin's sailboat. Now, naming boats is always a fun activity. But while most owners settle for designations reminiscent of the sea and adventure, the title character is slightly smarter than that. Care to guess? Benjamin Button's sailboat is called "Button Up."

The Curious Case Of Makeup

Even though we live in the 21st century and CGI has become the norm, sometimes relying on makeup is cheaper and ultimately results in a much more realistic look. For  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,  both Pitt and Blanchett had to suffer the consequences of ageing makeup application.

Brad Pitt said it took around five hours every day just to get everything done, and Blanchett four hours. She could only lay in the hospital bed for short periods of time because the lights almost melted everything off. A big price to pay for a unique cinematic masterpiece.

Next:  10 Domestic Noir Movies To Watch If You Loved Gone Girl

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Movie Review | 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'

It’s the Age of a Child Who Grows From a Man

By A.O. Scott

• Dec. 24, 2008

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” which occupies around 25 pages in the collected works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a slender piece of whimsy, a charming fantasy about a man who ages in reverse, descending through the years from newborn senescence to terminal infancy. As Fitzgerald unravels it, Benjamin’s story serves as the pretext for some amusing, fairly superficial observations about child rearing, undergraduate behavior and courtship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

From this odd, somewhat unpromising kernel, the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Eric Roth have cultivated a lush, romantic hothouse bloom, a film that shares only a title and a basic premise with its literary source. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” more than two and a half hours long, sighs with longing and simmers with intrigue while investigating the philosophical conundrums and emotional paradoxes of its protagonist’s condition in a spirit that owes more to Jorge Luis Borges than to Fitzgerald.

While the film’s plot progresses, with a few divagations, in a straight line through the decades of Benjamin Button’s life, the backward vector of that biography turns this “Curious Case” into a genuine mystery. And the puzzles it invites us to contemplate — in consistently interesting, if not always dramatically satisfying ways — are deep and imposing, concerning the passage of time, the elusiveness of experience and the Janus-faced nature of love.

Above all, though, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a triumph of technique. Building on the advances of pioneers like Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Robert Zemeckis — and on his own previous work adapting newfangled means to traditional cinematic ends — Mr. Fincher (“Fight Club,” “Zodiac”) has added a dimension of delicacy and grace to digital filmmaking. While it stands on the shoulders of breakthroughs like “Minority Report,” “The Lord of the Rings” and “Forrest Gump” (for which Mr. Roth wrote the screenplay), “Benjamin Button” may be the most dazzling such hybrid yet, precisely because it is the subtlest. While he does treat the audience to a few grand, special-effect showpieces, Mr. Fincher concentrates his ingenuity on the setting and the characters, in particular — and most arrestingly — on the faces of his stars, Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt.

Ms. Blanchett is Daisy, a dancer, bohemian and all-around free spirit who ages gracefully, before our eyes, into a stately modern matron and then into a wasted, breathless old woman. Mr. Pitt, for the most part, plays Benjamin, who is born, looking like a man in his 70s, into a prominent New Orleans family in 1918. I say for the most part because near the end of the movie Mr. Pitt is replaced by younger and younger children and also because, at the beginning, he is evoked by an uncanny computer-generated confection that seems to have been distilled from his essence. This creature, tiny and wizened, is at once boy and man, but in every scene the ratio is readjusted, until the strapping figure of a familiar movie star emerges, gradually and all but imperceptibly.

The inner life of Benjamin Button, abandoned at birth by his stricken father (Jason Flemyng) and raised by the infinitely kind caretaker of a nursing home (Taraji P. Henson), is harder to grasp than his outer appearance, in part because Mr. Pitt seems more interested in the nuances of reticence than in the dynamics of expression. It’s true that Benjamin’s condition imposes a certain detachment: he is at once innocent and ancient, almost never who he appears to be.

But even though Mr. Pitt’s coolness is a perfectly defensible approach to this character, his elusiveness, from one film to the next, is starting to look more defensive than daring. His recent performances have been devoted mainly to the study of his own magnetism, a quality he earnestly explores in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” and playfully subverts in “Burn After Reading.” It goes without saying that Mr. Pitt has charisma to burn, and he is a capable and inventive actor, but he will only be a great one if he risks breaking himself open on screen as he did, briefly, in “Babel.”

And so, while Benjamin’s progress through life drives the narrative of “The Curious Case,” he is (as the title suggests) more an object of contemplation than a flesh-and-blood (or bit-and-byte) candidate for our empathy. His jaunt through the 20th century is certainly fun to watch, with an episodic rhythm that recalls old movie serials or, even more, the endlessly dilated adventures of newspaper comic-strip heroes. After some initiation into the pleasures of the flesh and the bottle in the city of his birth, Young Button (Old Button) hires onto a tramp steamer. He tarries a while in Russia, sampling caviar and adultery (with a superbly soignée Tilda Swinton) before World War II intrudes.

Later there will be sailboats and motorcycles as the ambient light turns gold along with Mr. Pitt’s hair. There will not be much in the way of big events or public happenings — Benjamin Button is, finally, no Forrest Gump — and though he is a white Southerner raised by a black woman, he seems untouched by racial turmoil or by much of anything beyond the mysteries of his peculiar destiny.

But the movie’s emotional center of gravity — the character who struggles and changes and feels — is Daisy, played by Ms. Blanchett from impetuous ingénue to near ghost with an almost otherworldly mixture of hauteur and heat. The story of Benjamin’s life is read to Daisy by her daughter (Julia Ormond) in a New Orleans hospital room in 2005, just as Hurricane Katrina is approaching the city. The imminence of the storm is a superfluous and unduly portentous device, since Katrina brings to mind precisely the hard, real-life miseries the movie has done everything in its power to avoid.

That power, though, is something to be reckoned with, and it resides in Mr. Fincher’s ability to use his unbelievable skills to turn an incredible conceit into a plausible love story. The romance between Daisy and Benjamin begins when both are chronologically pre-adolescents and Benjamin is, physically, a codger, but the initial element of pedophilic creepiness in the relationship gives way to other forms of awkwardness. Their love is uniquely perfect and enduring. At the same time, like any other love — like any movie — it is shadowed by disappointment and fated to end. In the case of “Benjamin Button,” I was sorry when it was over and happy to have seen it.

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some scenes of sex and violence.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Opens on Thursday nationwide.

Directed by David Fincher; written by Eric Roth, based on a screen story by Mr. Roth and Robin Swicord and the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald; director of photography, Claudio Miranda; edited by Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall; music by Alexandre Desplat; production designer, Donald Graham Burt; produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Cean Chaffin; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 47 minutes.

WITH: Brad Pitt (Benjamin Button), Cate Blanchett (Daisy), Taraji P. Henson (Queenie), Julia Ormond (Caroline), Jason Flemyng (Thomas Button), Elias Koteas (Monsieur Gateau), Tilda Swinton (Elizabeth Abbott) and Jared Harris (Captain Mike).

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What's the Sailboat in "Curious Case of Benjamin Button"?

• SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!

According to WoodenBoat forum, she is a seven meter class sloop that was on a mooring on Martha's Vineyard as of 2007.  

What I did notice in the movie were the self-tailing winches... Tough to future proof a boat. Hinky? Hinckley you mean?  

PCP777 said: The Quincy Adams 17 has the hatch but the tiller looks wrong... Click to expand...

WheresTheBrakes

Smackdaddy, thanks for the mild +1 ! Jeff H, would you rather me PM you my next guess what's your guess by the way, monday morning quarterback ?? I saw about 10mins of the movie, and while preemptive "boatshopping" saw a boat with a sexy back end and whipped my thoughts up on this board while enjoying more than one homebrew...  

Dark Harbor 20 (boat from Benjamin Button) Click to expand...

WheresTheBrakes said: Smackdaddy, thanks for the mild +1 ! . Click to expand...

where did you get that quote ?? the only reference i could find in the thread was to a Dark Harbor 20, one of three guesses by Jeff H.. I'm pleased you got my quote right,  

CoastTrash said: Hey guys is this the boat are yall talking about I haven't scene the movie but this was on the news awhile back. Button Boat - Mississippi Ocean Springs Brad Pitt Boats - WKRG.com Click to expand...

rayvaci said: The link is broken. Click to expand...

SailingStNick

Five years into this mystery, I've found the owner of the boat. He lives in my hometown and is a retired doctor as well as a renowned wooden boat builder and ocean sailor. I didn't realize he owned the boat in this movie but I will find out more about it soon. He's taken to my son and me because of our curiosity (and his ten children's lack thereof) about sailing. More later...  

RobGallagher

http://yacht-export.com/en_boat_galery.php?id=15115  

Here, crew. Better late than never, right? Boat name is VARUA. Restored by First Light Boatworks 2017/2018. Subject of "Never Lose Steerage Way" by designer/builder, John W. Braidwood Home Port: Chatham, MA Cheers! Guille  

Looks like a Kettenburg PC to me.....  

Thats a lot of displacement. Is that normal in a boat of that era?  

hpeer said: Thats a lot of displacement. Is that normal in a boat of that era? Click to expand...

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The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button Review

06 Feb 2009

165 minutes

Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, The

About three-quarters of the way through The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, we are presented with perhaps the unlikeliest scene of 2009, a real cinematic curio: as Benjamin (Brad Pitt) and Daisy (Cate Blanchett) move into an apartment together, we get the awesome spectacle of A David Fincher Rom-Com Montage, as the lovers do the decorating, set up home and goof around. It’s exactly the kind of thing that is de rigueur for films starring Kate Hudson, but seems unimaginable from the director of Seven, Fight Club and Zodiac. But, in turning his attention to the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story that previously passed through Steven Spielberg and Spike Jonze (isn’t Fincher the middle ground between these two?), David Fincher, after years of assaulting our senses, has found a palette of completely different tones without jettisoning any of his filmmaking flair or acuity.

A lot of talk surrounding Button will concern its similarity to Forrest Gump. This is down to its almost blank-slate hero, technical razzle-dazzle, use of a single character to document swathes of American history and the fact that Eric Roth penned both screenplays. But in the off-screen and on-screen story, the film Benjamin Button perhaps most resembles is Titanic. Both represent culty genre directors stepping out of their comfort zones — for Cameron, science-fiction with a double-helping of time travel, for Fincher, thriller with a double-helping of serial-killing — into more awards-friendly territory. Both are time-shifting, big-scale love stories narrated by an old dear that are marinated by the knowledge of impending death. And both are exquisitely tailored pieces of filmmaking that put dazzling visual effects in the service of deeply human stories.

But where Button veers sharply from Titanic is in its emotional temperature. Whereas Cameron uses every trick in the book to put the audience through the wringer, Fincher’s story of a man who grows young never goes for easy, Hans Zimmer-inspired surging sentiment. Every one of Fincher’s instincts fights against it. A resident in the OAP home that Benjamin grows up in has been hit seven times by lightning and Fincher has malicious fun in flashing back to every one. In one of the film’s wittiest moments, Blanchett’s Daisy tells a youthful-looking Button, “You’re perfect”, and the jangling irony that this is being said to Brad Pitt is not lost on anyone. This is typical of Fincher’s war on the mawkish.

This is also a love story that has no truck with notions such as fate and destiny, and as if to underline the point Fincher mounts an impeccable, intricately constructed What If? montage, an ode to chaos theory that has important ramifications for a major character and the story as a whole. In Button’s grown-up universe, people do not waft around like feathers: they make their own decisions, choose their own outcomes and live with the sometimes devastating consequences. Even the framing story, as a fading Daisy tells her daughter (Julia Ormond’s face couldn’t look more weathered) the story of Benjamin, is told in cold, harsh greys, with the threat of a hurricane raging outside. The Brad Silberling version would have played this out in golden light and with syrupy strings.

But for all its coolness it never relinquishes the poignancy of its premise — that time is the nemesis of love — and this is the beating heart of the film. As the relationship between Benjamin and Daisy, that starts as a childhood friendship and goes through numerous peaks and rejections, moves forward, everything points towards the sweet spot where the couple’s ages will be more or less in synch. Fincher doesn’t rush getting them together — before that can happen, Benjamin has a heartbreaking affair with the wife of a diplomat, superbly played by Tilda Swinton, conducted mainly in a hotel in the dead of night— or contrive them getting it on. And when this finally does happen, it is shot through with the knowledge that their passion can only be fleeting, that their physical forms are heading in completely opposite directions to their increasingly simpatico emotions. It is this feeling that washes over the film: a tangible and sincere sense of melancholy, a lament for the transitory nature of both love and life.

As much as it is about an intimate relationship, Fincher plays it out against a huge canvas. Starting with World War I — a bravura tracking shot depicts a battleground but rewinds the film to see soldiers spring back to life and explosions dwindle back to nothing, again commenting on the implacable march of time — and working its way into the 21st century, Button doesn’t whack you over the head with its decade-spanning, refusing to serve up an endless parade of pop hits, bad fashions and times-they-are-a-changin’ news footage. Instead, Fincher’s images are small and recognisable, the kind of shots you might find in your own family photo albums. Similarly, the film jumps from New Orleans to Murmansk to India and from big moment to big moment; Button is a film as happy handling a terrific sea battle in which Button’s tugboat has a run-in with a Nazi U-boat as the smallest gesture, such is its dexterity and detail.

The fact we’ve got this far and haven’t mentioned the digital and prosthetic de-ageing techniques is testament to how quickly you forget about them — Fincher has bigger emotional, intellectual fish to fry. If the visions of Pitt as young Benjamin, decrepit with the face of a wizened prune, are impressive, even more startling are the shots of Benjamin older in age, with Pitt visibly younger than he is in Thelma & Louise. Watching Pitt devolve from his dotage to his teens is a leap forward in effects to rival The Abyss and Terminator 2 but without ever shouting about it. The possibilities for actors wanting to realistically revisit former glories without going anywhere near a surgeon’s scalpel are now achievable and endless.

That the trick never feels tricksy is partly down to Pitt’s gentle, sympathetic performance. Button is a strange central figure. Like Gump, Button is a passive, almost uninteresting character (unlike Gump, he is a sexual being, the film getting laughs from the disjunct between the randy young man’s hormones and the old man’s body), Pitt’s subtlety resulting in the kind of performance the Academy could overlook. There is a lovely early moment where young-in-age but old-in-body Benjamin flexes his muscles like a circus strongman and Pitt’s face glows with child-like glee.

Fincher’s decision to pull the easy emotional punches could well cost him Oscar glory. But it doesn’t matter, because he has made a film for the ages, not just February 6. If you look hard enough there are grace notes in Benjamin Button, from a Tinkerbell-like humming bird flying over a scene of World War II carnage to Benjamin and Daisy frolicking in a sailing boat off Florida Keys, just as a NASA spacecraft lights up the sky behind them, that resonate for true romantics everywhere. And, unlike 99.9 per cent of other Hollywood movies, it earns them.

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How Different Is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 Short Story?

What do you think? Are the comparisons between the two movies justified?

Upon its theatrical release in late 2008,   David Fincher 's  The Curious Case of Benjamin Button drew comparisons — both favorable and unfavorable — to Robert Zemeckis '  Forrest Gump . In addition to sharing the same screenwriter, Eric Roth, both movies are uncannily similar in their narrative structure.

Both tell the story of a disadvantaged young man underestimated by everyone he meets, who goes on to live an extraordinary life punctuated by a colorful cast of supporting characters and some of the most important historical events of the 20th century. Oh, and let's not forget the present-day narration framing device, as well as a main character pining after a close childhood friend who never really gives him the time of day until one of them becomes fabulously wealthy.

For More on David Fincher: Fight Club Still Has One of the Best Movie Twists, But Don't Overthink It Louis Leterrier Explains How David Fincher’s Se7en Influenced Look of The Incredible Hulk It’s a miracle that 'Alien 3' ever got out of development hell

Are Forrest Gump and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Basically the Same Movie?

"I think people are reading a little more into that. I know they've made some things out of certain things that have unconsciously gone in, but they’re quite different movies," Roth said during an interview with Games Radar in 2009. "The biggest thing that is similar is probably the picturesque, incidental things. In its own way, Benjamin is a much more mature movie. It deals with a man’s life. Forrest Gump deals with his times."

To say the scribe simply ripped off his own Oscar-winning screenplay for Gump  and called it a day would be something of an inequitable claim, because, like Gump ,  Benjamin Button was adapted from pre-existing literary source material, specifically a 1922 short story by The Great Gatsby author, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Now, aside from the basic premise of a man who ages backwards, entering the world as an old man and leaving it as an infant, the short story and its feature-length translation are vastly different animals. The late Roger Ebert summed it up best in his review , writing: "Fitzgerald wrote a comic farce, which Roth has made a forlorn elegy."

That's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the two compliment each other quite nicely. The short story, for example, reflects the carefree and whimsical attitude of the pre-Depression/Jazz Age period in which Fitzgerald penned his seminal works. The movie, on the other hand, offers up a sobering, postmodern view of the world, ruminating on the fragility of life and the tragic shattering of American naïveté in the wake of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina — the later of which features heavily in Benjamin  Button 's contemporary framing device.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button : Main Differences Between F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 Short Story and David Fincher's 2008 Film Adaptation

SHORT STORY:

• Benjamin is born in 1860 at a hospital in Antebellum Baltimore
• Benjamin’s mother survives childbirth
• Benjamin’s father owns a hardware business
• Benjamin is born as a fully-grown man of 70 and can speak in full sentences 
• Benjamin goes home with his parents, who stubbornly pretend he is a child
• Benjamin marries a general’s daughter and takes over his father’s hardware business when the older Button retires
• Benjamin participates in the famous charge up San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War
• Benjamin grows tired of his aging wife and attends Harvard
• Benjamin attempts to serve during World War I, but is rejected for being too young
• Benjamin lives out his final years in the house of his son, Roscoe, who treats him as a nuisance

FILM ADAPTATION:

• Benjamin (Brad Pitt) is born in 1918, at the very end of World War I, in his parents’ lavish New Orleans home
• Benjamin’s mother dies in childbirth 
• Benjamin’s father (Jason Flemyng) owns a button business 
• Benjamin is born as a wrinkled baby with all the ailments of advanced old age and cannot speak 
• Benjamin is abandoned by his father on the steps of an old folks home run by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson)
• Benjamin falls in love with childhood friend Daisy (Cate Blanchett) and inherits his father’s button business after the older Button dies
• Benjamin finds work on a tug boat and takes part in World War II
• Benjamin has a daughter with Daisy, but decides to leave his family, not wanting to be a burden on them as he gets younger
• Benjamin lives out his final years in the old folks home where he was raised

Catch David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button streaming now on Peacock!

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a 2008 American fantasy romantic drama film about a man who ages in reverse.

• 1 Benjamin Button
• 10 External links

Benjamin Button

• My name is Benjamin Button, and I was born under unusual circumstances. While everyone else was aging, I was gettin' younger... all alone.
• It's funny how sometimes the people we remember the least make the greatest impression on us
• Along the way you bump into people who make a dent on your life.
• It's a funny thing about comin' home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You'll realize what's changed is you.
• Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.
• Sometimes we're on a collision course, and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it.
• If only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn't broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn't broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn't stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would've crossed the street, and the taxi would've driven by. But life being what it is — a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control — that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed.
• I think, right there and then, she realized none of us is perfect forever.
• Letter to his daughter
• I promise you, I'll never lose myself to self-pity again.
• Everyone ends up in diapers at some point, sweetie.
• And in the spring, 2003, he looked at me. And I knew — that he knew — who I was. And then he closed his eyes, as if to go to sleep.
• I know the circumstances and I've accepted that. Loving you is worth all of it.
• Poor child, he got the worst of it. Come out white.
• You never know what's comin' for ya.
• Everybody feels different about themselves, one way or another. But we’re all going the same way. Just taking different roads to get there, that’s all.”
• I wish I'd known him.
• Did you know that I was struck by lightning seven times?
• Did I ever tell you I was struck by lightning seven times? Once when I was in the field, just tending to my cows:
• Did I ever tell you I been struck by lightning seven times? Once when I was just sittin' in my truck just minding my own business.
• Did I ever tell you I been struck by lightning seven times? Once when I was repairing a leak on the roof. Once I was just crossing the road to get the mail. Once, I was walking my dog down the road.
• Did i ever tell you i got struck by lightning seven times? once when i was just sitting on the toilet!
• Blinded in one eye; can't hardly hear. I get twitches and shakes out of nowhere; always losing my line of thought. But you know what? God keeps reminding me I'm lucky to be alive.
• Storm's comin'.
• Captain Mike
• Appeared in Trailer
• Life isn't measured in minutes, but in moments.
• Life can only be understood backward. It must be lived forward.
• Time is passing, even backwards.
• Brad Pitt — Benjamin Button
• Cate Blanchett — Daisy Fuller
• Taraji P. Henson — Queenie
• Mahershala Ali — Tizzy Weathers
• Julia Ormond — Caroline Button
• Jason Flemyng — Thomas Button
• Elias Koteas — Monsieur Gateau
• Tilda Swinton — Elizabeth Abbott

External links

• Official site
• Tales of the Jazz Age F. Scott Fitzgerald collection w/ "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Public Domain)
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button trailers
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at Metacritic
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , at SFcrowsnest.com
• Scoring Session Photo Gallery at ScoringSessions.com
• Official "behind-the-scenes" audio features
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - European premiere in Berlin, article, photos and videos

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

• Drama , Romance , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button; Cate Blanchett as Daisy; Taraji P. Henson as Queenie; Julia Ormond as Caroline; Jason Flemyng as Thomas Button; Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth Abbott; Jared Harris as Captain Mike

Home Release Date

• David Fincher

Distributor

• Warner Bros.

Positive Elements   |   Spiritual Elements   |   Sexual & Romantic Content   |   Violent Content   |   Crude or Profane Language   |   Drug & Alcohol Content   |   Other Noteworthy Elements   | Conclusion

Movie Review

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button begins in the hospital room of an elderly, terminally ill woman. Attending is her daughter, Caroline. The dying woman asks Caroline to read from the diary of a friend named Benjamin, whose life addresses this question: If one could live in reverse—old to young—would inevitable losses be erased?

Benjamin’s story begins with a vignette about a clockmaker and his wife who lose their son in battle during World War I. The craftsman’s final masterwork, a magnificent clock in New Orleans’ train station, runs backwards—a reflection of his desire to rewind time and relive happier days.

At the moment the clock begins ticking, a peculiar person is born—with a crinkled visage resembling that of an octogenarian. His mother perishes in childbirth. His father, Thomas Button, cannot bear what’s happened and contemplates tossing the decrepit infant in a river. Instead, he deposits him on the steps of a nursing home. Benjamin is discovered by a black woman named Queenie who lives and works there. She vows to raise him herself.

As Benjamin grows—older and younger—he meets someone who’ll change his life forever: a girl named Daisy. She matures as he regresses, setting the stage for one of the most complicated love stories ever told. Along the way, Benjamin’s adventures lead him into the employ of a salty tugboat captain, to exotic ports, into the arms of another man’s wife, into battle in World War II and back home to New Orleans.

Each day, Benjamin’s internal clock runs inexorably backwards.

[ Note: The following sections include spoilers. ]

Positive Elements

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button challenges the idea that life would be better if we could erase its hurts. Characters repeatedly deliver philosophical aphorisms that add up to a message about the importance of cherishing each day, whether it brings good or ill.

The right response to loss, according to the film, is acceptance rather than denial. The tugboat captain, Mike, quips, “You can be as mad as a dog at the ways things went, you can swear and curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.”

Dealing with death, then, is a closely related theme. Growing up in a nursing home, Benjamin learns to receive from the residents the small gifts they have to offer. An elderly woman teaches him how to play piano, for example, and tells him that losing those we love reminds us of the importance of our relationships. Likewise, Caroline tells her dying mother, “I wanted to tell you how much I’m going to miss you.”

Another theme is new beginnings. “It’s never too late, or in my case, too early, to be whatever you want to be,” Benjamin says. “I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.”

Queenie cares for Benjamin’s physical and spiritual needs. And she tells him his life has purpose even though he looks different (“You’re on your own route, Benjamin. … Be thankful for what you’ve been given”).

Thomas Button eventually apologizes for abandoning Benjamin. Before his father dies, Benjamin carries him down to a lake to see the sunrise one last time.

In one poignant scene, Daisy asks Benjamin, “Will you still love me when my skin is old and saggy?” He replies, “Will you still love me when I have acne, wet the bed and am afraid of what’s under the stairs?”

The pair never marries, even though they have a child. Benjamin asks, “How can I be a father when I’m headed in the other direction?” Daisy tells him, “Be there for as long as you can, and I’ll accept the consequences.” As he keeps regressing, he says, “You’re going to have to find a real father for her. She needs a father, not a playmate.” Whether his solution is proper is debatable: Benjamin leaves Daisy so she can find a husband and father for the child (which she does). But Benjamin never wavers in his devotion. And he sends birthday cards and notes expressing his affection from afar. The film concludes with Daisy caring for Benjamin as he forgets how to walk and talk.

Spiritual Elements

Queenie is a Christian whose faith influences how she sees Benjamin’s condition. She calls him a “child of God” and “a miracle.” And when he gets discouraged about his condition, Queenie encourages, “God has a way in that.” She prays for him, and she exhorts him to keep saying his prayers when he leaves home.

At Queenie’s revival-oriented church, the pastor performs an exorcism on Benjamin, saying, “Out, Beelzebub! Out, damnable affliction!” A man who’s suffered much comments, “God keeps reminding me I’m lucky to be alive.” Daisy mentions the psychic Edgar Cayce and his beliefs in predestination and fate.

As Captain Mike dies after a heroic attack on a German U-boat, Benjamin tells him, “There’s a nice spot in heaven waiting for you.” Benjamin spies a hummingbird flying upward, perhaps a symbol of Mike’s spirit. A hummingbird appears again when Benjamin grows too young to live any longer.

Sexual & Romantic Content

As a “teen,” Benjamin talks about his body’s changes. And when Captain Mike learns Benjamin has never had sex, he takes him to a brothel. We see numerous prostitutes in lingerie as well as Benjamin under the covers with a woman. It’s implied that they have sex repeatedly. Benjamin becomes a brothel regular after that. His father is also a customer.

In Russia, Benjamin befriends Elizabeth Abbot, the lonely wife of a British diplomat. Nighttime conversation turns into a nightly sexual rendezvous. We see them kiss and see her in her nightgown.

As an adult, Daisy is a ballet dancer who attributes her liberal attitude toward sex to her profession. She tells Benjamin that sex is a part of her troupe’s regular activities. She also says many dancers are lesbians. After a sensual dance in front of him, Daisy propositions Benjamin for sex. (He declines.)

After a performance in New York, female dancers are half dressed at best, and the men aren’t wearing much, either. It’s a nod to bohemian culture as they dance, embrace, drink and smoke. (A similar scene follows later on.) We see Daisy in her undergarments as she gets dressed, and one of her dancing outfits is translucent and exceedingly tight.

Benjamin says at one point that he’s had a number of different lovers. (We see him embracing and leaving several.) He and Daisy eventually consummate their relationship, and we see several montages of their sexual escapades over ensuing years picturing them in various states of undress. One distant shot shows them naked in an embrace on the beach. Another shows their nude silhouettes as they swim at night. They have one encounter after she’s married to someone else.

Queenie and her lover, Tizzy, kiss on her bed. (She’s wearing a nightie of sorts.) It’s implied that they have an ongoing sexual relationship, and they have a daughter years later.

Violent Content

WWI soldiers get shot and blown up. On a tugboat mission during World War II, Captain Mike comes upon a torpedoed boat: Bloody bodies float in the water. The U-boat’s guns kill almost everyone on Mike’s vessel.

Benjamin’s mother is covered by a bloodied sheet after she gives birth to him. Pregnant, Daisy falls down the stairs, and we see blood on the floor. A woman is hit by a car, resulting in blood on the ground. A man recalls being struck by lightning seven times. For humor’s sake, we’re shown each strike.

Crude or Profane Language

Two f-words. Five s-words. Jesus’ names are taken in vain at least a half-dozen times. God’s name is abused a couple more time than that; twice it is paired with “d–n.” Characters also utter a handful of other swear words (“a–,” “d–n,” “b–tard”).

Drug & Alcohol Content

Captain Mike drinks constantly and smokes cigars. There’s drinking and smoking at the brothel. Mike’s crew gets drunk at bars every night. Thomas Button has several drinks with Benjamin, who gets drunk for the first time while with his father. Benjamin and Elizabeth share some vodka. We also see them drink champagne. Daisy drinks and smokes, as do others.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Queenie lies about Benjamin’s sudden arrival, repeatedly saying that he’s the result of her sister’s affair with a white man. We see an elderly man’s backside as he showers; Benjamin is shown twice in a soapy bathtub (naked, but covered by bubbles). We also see Captain Mike drunk and shirtless, wearing only long underwear. Captain Mike calls a Cherokee sailor “Chief.”

“Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach 18.” That observation by Mark Twain inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to pen his 1922 short story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Nearly a century later, Zodiac and Fight Club director David Fincher lets loose a cinematic adaptation.

At its core, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is about how we live, given the inexorable reality of death. Whether we live forward into old age or backward into infancy, the result is the same: We die.

Taraji P. Henson, who plays Queenie, talked about this theme with Plugged In Online : “[The film] was very therapeutic for me because I lost my dad a few months before going into production. I feel like sometimes we build these defense mechanisms to help us cope. And sometimes it’s not the best. They can be walls that start to manifest themselves later on because you haven’t dealt with anything bad in your life. This really forced me to deal with the loss of my dad.”

Brad Pitt felt much the same way. He told Rolling Stone , “I’m scared to death of [mortality]. … [But] what occurred to me on this film, and also with the passing of [Angelina Jolie’s] mother, is that there’s going to come a time when I’m not going to be with this person anymore. … I don’t want to waste time being angry at someone I love. … This thing is fragile, and there’s a ticking clock on it, and whether it be death or what, there’s just going to come that time. So this movie changed that for me.”

Indeed, despite its potentially gloomy subject matter, the messages in Benjamin Button often parallel Solomon’s teachings on need and time in the book of Ecclesiastes. But there’s a stumbling block on the way to understanding them: Sex in this film is depicted simply as one of the good things life has to offer. Never mind the context. From Benjamin’s initial encounters with prostitutes, to his affair with a married woman, to dalliances with unnamed suitors, to his lengthy love affair with Daisy—before and after her marriage to another man—Benjamin’s sexual mores never get a second look.

Further, Queenie’s devout faith seems completely disconnected from her sexual choices. Henson said of her character, “Queenie was ahead of her time, shacking up. I just think she was the kind of woman that didn’t fuss over that kind of stuff. We never dealt with it.”

By starting at the end and working toward the beginning, two things become clear: David Fincher thoughtfully deals with one of life’s hardest issues, death. And he leaves the purpose, place and morality of one of life’s biggest issues, sex, almost completely unexplored.

Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

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Written by Matt Goldberg

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is epic in the best sense of the word. It's not about set pieces—it's about scale. It's not about distance—it's about depth. Director David Fincher has crafted an epic love poem, a tale of life and death, a story about storytelling. He does it all and does it without soaring trumpets, grand declarations, or even the in-your-face style of "Fight Club". He does it with character, with pacing, with gorgeous cinematography, and with all the quiet strength and confidence of a much older and experienced artist.

The hook of "Benjamin Button" is that the title character (Brad Pitt) was "born under unusual circumstances." Specifically, Benjamin is born as a man in his mid-80s and then ages in reverse. Abandoned by his father on the doorstep of an old-folks home, Benjamin is found by the kind-hearted Queenie (secret weapon Taraji P. Henson again reminding us why her involvement in a film is a reason for excitement) who works as a caretaker at the home. We learn of Benjamin's story through his diary, read by Caroline (Julia Ormond), the daughter of his life-long love Daisy (Cate Blanchett). As Daisy fades away on her deathbed, we walk through Benjamin's life and see the odd turns of happenstance, opportunity, loss, learning, and above all, love; the unusual circumstances of his life leading to events both common and extraordinary.

Benjamin's condition is both an after-thought and a symbol on which the entire film turns. We never forget that we're watching a seven-year-old that happens to look seventy or a sixty-year-old that looks twenty-one, yet it's rarely distracting. It's only when we take a step back do we realize the beauty and tragedy of Benjamin's condition is that his life is on a countdown. He knows exactly when his time is up and it gives an immediate reason to treasure each moment and value every relationship. It's odd little thing to wake up a day younger and a day closer to death and again, balancing that knowledge is what makes Benjamin such a rich character. The film turns to Benjamin's age for an occasional moment of levity or poignancy and it always remains in the periphery but the focus of the film isn't age—it's life.

What makes "Benjamin Button" such a rich tapestry is that the film has so much to offer. I'm sad that I'll probably have to wait until Christmas to see the film again but I'm thankful that I've at least seen it once. I would like to watch it again with the sound off just to gawk at Claudio Miranda's luscious cinematography. The film has a look that's both modern yet timeless with images of Daisy's ballet or Benjamin at sea painted into my brain. It also does a wonderful job of capturing setting. Like any good epic, "Button" takes place in a variety of locations across the globe, but New Orleans is its home and the city should probably get its name on the marquee along side Pitt and Blanchett. That the framing device of Caroline reading Benjamin's diary to Daisy takes place on the eve of Hurricane Katrina is slightly distracting until you notice that storms are cleverly woven throughout the fabric of the film, a constant reminder of nature's terrifying instability yet odd comfort in its inevitability. It may be a symbol for something but I'm not sure what…

I would like to watch the film with the sound off and listen to Eric Roth's dialogue and Benjamin's voiceovers that make me feel not only the New Orelans' drawl but like I'm hearing literature come to life (which works out well since it's based off a 1922 short story by some guy called F. Scott Fitzgerald). I'd like to hear Alexandre Desplat's carefully measured score that always supports the film rather than acting as a crutch or a distraction.

But if I closed my eyes or covered my ears, I wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the performances of the film, chief among them, Brad Pitt as the man with the curious case. Simply put, Pitt gives his best performance to date. Yes, flashier roles like Tyler Durden or Jeffrey Goines get the acclaim but the quiet strength and soul that Pitt puts into his performance is uncanny. He's not just acting under make-up or through it but actively makes his age a part of his character. A young man born into an elderly body, Pitt thoughtfully portrays Button as a boy who grew up not among energetic children but among the infirm, the dying, and most importantly, the introspective. There's the saying that "Youth is wasted on the young," but "Button" makes me think that the opposite may be just as true.

It's also to Pitt's credit that he doesn't let the make-up do all the work because with make-up and CGI this good, he probably could get away with it. All age make-up from here on out has to live in the shadow of "Benjamin Button". While Button's reverse aging is his hook, there are numerous characters throughout his lifetime that go through traditional aging and the work done on them is no less impressive. Quality aging make-up to make an actor look older or younger is difficult and "Benjamin Button" makes it look easy.

Playing alongside Pitt sharing is Cate Blanchett, once again effortlessly demonstrating that she's of the best actresses working today. The film doesn't need to waste time showing the pros and cons of Benjamin and Daisy. The chemistry and craft between Pitt and Blanchett sells that love for us and it sells because it's not always active and burning with the passion of a thousand suns. In "Benjamin Button", it's not just about acting like your in love—it's about acting like how a person of a certain age acts in love. The young love recklessly, the mature love confidently, the old love wistfully, and then there are all the complexities in between. It's a complex portrayal of a complex emotion and one with a rewarding pay-off.

I'll admit I was tearing-up at the end of the film. This is an epic love story told not simply through singular events but through the entire lives of two people. It's a love that feels real because it perfectly captures the foolish temperament of youth and the deep sadness of experience. If you need evidence of the film's success, look no further than the scenes between Benjamin and Daisy. Our instinct to see such May-December relationships is to find them icky and unbecoming but because of the confidence of Pitt, Blanchett, Roth, and Fincher, we always know that these two people are only six years apart in age and it's their actions that bind them together, not their physical appearances.

With the exception of orcs, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" has everything I want in an epic and delivers it all flawlessly. It knows when to lean on the strange, embrace the universal, and how to balance everything in between. It is timeless, it is immediate, and it is classic. Its beauty is staggering. Its loveliness is heartbreaking.

Rating ----- A

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: Introduction

The curious case of benjamin button: plot summary, the curious case of benjamin button: detailed summary & analysis, the curious case of benjamin button: themes, the curious case of benjamin button: quotes, the curious case of benjamin button: characters, the curious case of benjamin button: symbols, the curious case of benjamin button: literary devices, the curious case of benjamin button: theme wheel, brief biography of f. scott fitzgerald.

Historical Context of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Other books related to the curious case of benjamin button.

• Full Title: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• When Published: May 27, 1922
• Literary Period: The Jazz Age; Modernism
• Genre: Short Story
• Setting: Baltimore between 1860 and roughly 1930
• Climax: Benjamin becomes an infant and dies.
• Antagonist: Societal expectations
• Point of View: Third Person

Extra Credit for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Big Screen. In 2008, the screenwriter Eric Roth adapted a loose interpretation of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” as a feature-length film. The movie starred Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Mahershala Ali, and a number of other well-known actors.

Medical Condition. Although the premise of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is highly improbable, there is a real medical condition—called progeria—that causes children to age extremely quickly (though not in reverse). Those afflicted with the disease often look elderly as children or teenagers, similar to how Benjamin starts off looking much older than his numerical age.

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an epic fantasy tale with rich storytelling backed by fantastic performances.

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

By F. Scott Fitzgerald

In Baltimore in the late 1800s, a child named Benjamin Button is born with the appearance and demeanor of a 70-year-old man. As time progresses, Benjamin ages backward, moving from elderly fragility to youthful exuberance, challenging the natural course of life.

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Plot Summary

In the city of Baltimore, Mr. Roger Button, a prominent businessman, anxiously awaits the arrival of his first child at the hospital. Upon arrival, the hospital staff is in a state of chaos. Dr. Keene breaks the unbelievable news to Mr. Button that his son appears to be a man of at least seventy years old. Shocked, Roger Button first denies, then reluctantly accepts, this bizarre reality. The child, named Benjamin Button, has a long white beard, a bald head, and wrinkles. He possesses all the physical and cognitive characteristics of an old man. Initially, the Buttons are embarrassed by their child's unique condition and struggle to adapt. Benjamin's "youth" is marked by an elderly appearance and the mentality of an old man. He is sent to kindergarten, much to the dismay of the teacher and fellow students, and wears glasses to play with toys. Benjamin's age-inverted life creates endless conflicts with societal norms. Benjamin’s father attempts to mold him into a typical child by making him play with toys and convincing him to call him “father” rather than “Mr. Button.” Over time, Benjamin begins to look younger. As he biologically "ages" into his 50s. Benjamin arrives as a freshman Yale but has forgotten to dye his hair to make his appearance more youthful. When he tells the registrar he is eighteen, he is called a lunatic and laughed out of school. Benjamin goes to work for his father, and they begin to look like brothers. Around this time, he meets and marries Hildegarde Moncrief, the daughter of a general, who likes 'older' men. His relationship with Hildegarde grows strained as he becomes younger and she ages naturally. Benjamin joins the army during the Spanish American War to escape home, but returns 3 years later for his business. As years pass, Benjamin becomes a prominent figure in Baltimore due to his successful business ventures. However, his personal life is filled with challenges. His son, Roscoe, struggles to comprehend his father's condition. Benjamin's life is a constant adaptation to his ever-youthful state. He enrolls in Harvard as a freshman and entrusts his business to his son. He begins to indulge in more youthful pleasures and behaviors as he grows into his teenage years, now resembling a young boy. With this transformation, Hildegarde leaves him, finding it hard to be with a husband who looks like a child. In his last years, Benjamin's memory fades, and he regresses to an infantile state. He is unable to recognize his family members or recall his past life. The once-prominent businessman becomes entirely dependent on others for care. Roscoe, now matured, takes responsibility for Benjamin, treating him as his own child. As a baby in appearance with an elderly mind, his memories begin to fade. He eventually passes away.

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