Title : The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonGenres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy and AdaptationRelease Date: December 25th, 2008 (wide)
Distributors: Paramount Pictures
U.S. Box Office: $116,473,266
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Jason Flemyng, Taraji P. Henson, Julia OrmondDirected by: David Fincher
Synopsis :The elderly Daisy (Blanchett) is on her deathbed with her daughter Caroline (Ormond) in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina approaches in August 2005. Daisy tells the story of a blind clockmaker named Gateau (Koteas), who was commissioned to create a clock to hang in the New Orleans train station. After receiving news of his son's death in World War I, he continued work on his clock, but intentionally designed it to run backward, in the hope that it would bring back those who died in the war. After her cryptic story, Daisy asks Caroline to read aloud from a diary containing photographs and postcards written by Benjamin Button (Pitt). Caroline begins to read as the story transitions to Benjamin's narration.
On November 11, 1918, just as the people of New Orleans are celebrating the end of World War I, a baby boy is born with the appearance and physical limitations of a man who is 86 years old. The mother of the baby dies shortly after giving birth, and the father, Thomas Button, takes the baby and abandons him on the porch of a nursing home. Queenie (Henson) and Tizzy (Ali), a couple who work at the nursing home, find the baby. Queenie, who is unable to conceive, decides to take the baby in as her own, against Tizzy's wishes. She names the baby Benjamin.
Over the course of the story, Benjamin begins to biologically grow younger. In 1930, while still appearing to be in his seventies, he meets a young girl named Daisy (Fanning), whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. The children play together and listen to Daisy's grandmother read from a storybook.
A few years later, Benjamin goes to work on a tugboat on the docks of New Orleans for Captain Mike (Jared Harris). In their free time, the captain takes him to brothels and bars. For the first time, Benjamin meets Thomas Button, who does not reveal that he is Benjamin's father. Later, Benjamin leaves New Orleans with the tugboat crew for a long-term work engagement; Daisy asks him to send her postcards from his travels, which Benjamin does.
During a stay in Russia, Benjamin meets a British woman named Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton) and falls in love with her; Daisy is visibly hurt to receive this news via postcard. Elizabeth is already married, with her husband working as a spy for the British government, but she has an affair with Benjamin. The fling ends on the morning of December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, when Elizabeth abruptly departs, leaving a note behind: "It was nice to have met you."
Shortly thereafter, Benjamin gets caught up in World War II when Captain Mike's boat and crew are enlisted by the United States Navy. Happening upon the burning wrecks of an Allied convoy, the tugboat rams and sinks a German U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the sailors on board the tugboat, including Captain Mike, die in the battle. As a rescued Benjamin departs the scene the next morning, a hummingbird--which Captain Mike had earlier described as a miracle--appears mid-ocean before flying away. After this, Benjamin sees death in a different way, as opposed to the retirement home where death seemed more natural.
In 1945, Benjamin returns to New Orleans, and again meets Thomas Button, who is dying. Thomas reveals to Benjamin that he is his father and bequeaths all of his assets to Benjamin, including the house and the family business. Initially overwhelmed and angry, Benjamin eventually makes peace with his father before the elder Button dies.
Benjamin learns that Daisy has become a successful dancer in New York City. When he travels to New York to meet Daisy at a performance, he finds Daisy has fallen in love with a fellow dancer, and tries to accept that their lives have separated. However, when Daisy later falls victim to a car accident during a dance tour in Paris, shattering her leg and abruptly ending her dance career, Benjamin immediately travels to Paris to find her. Daisy's first comment upon seeing Benjamin is "you're perfect", referring to his youthful appearance; frustrated and ashamed at her own injuries, she turns Benjamin away, telling him to get out of her life.
In 1962, Daisy returns to New Orleans and meets Benjamin again and falls in love. Benjamin sells the house he had inherited from Thomas Button and moves into a duplex apartment with Daisy, who later starts a dance studio for young girls. Now the same apparent age, the couple passes the 1960s together, in large part blissfully but increasingly aware of Benjamin growing younger while Daisy grows older.
A few years pass and Daisy gives birth to a girl, Caroline, named after Benjamin's mother. Benjamin, believing he can no longer be a "real father" to his daughter due to his continued reverse aging, decides to leave Daisy behind with his possessions and assets so that she will only have to raise one child, not two. When Caroline turns one, Benjamin departs with nothing but the clothes on his back, supporting himself with odd jobs as he travels various countries around the world.
Reading this account in the hospital room of 2005, Caroline learns that Benjamin is her father. She is upset that Daisy took such a long time to inform her of this, but finds that Benjamin sent her a postcard from everywhere for each of her birthdays expressing his love for his daughter.
In 1980, Benjamin - now looking like a 25-year-old - returns to meet Daisy in her dance studio. The aging Daisy is now married to a widower, a kind man who supports her well, to Benjamin's relief. Daisy introduces Benjamin to her husband and the 12-year-old Caroline as a long-time family friend. Daisy and Benjamin then meet privately in Benjamin's hotel where they share their passion for each other, but they mutually realize that Daisy has become too old for Benjamin.
Benjamin departs again and continues to grow younger until one day, Daisy receives a phone call from social workers. They inform her that they found Benjamin--now a young pre-teen just hitting puberty--living in a condemned building, and that they called her because they saw her name all over his diary. The social workers believe that he has dementia, but he exhibits symptoms more similar to Alzheimer's, as he often sometimes forgets that he had just eaten (a common symptom of Alzheimer's) and cannot remember Daisy or much of his past. Daisy moves into the nursing home where Benjamin grew up and takes care of him as he becomes a confused 5-year-old boy with a growing temper.
In 2002, Mr. Gateau's old clock is removed from the train station. Shortly afterward, in the spring of 2003, an infant Benjamin dies in Daisy's arms (unable to grow any younger, ironically dying of "old age"). At the moment before Benjamin dies, Daisy claims to have seen in his eyes that he still remembers her.
In the 2005 hospital room, the hurricane raging outside downs the electrical system. As Caroline briefly leaves the room, Daisy passes away, her wish of seeing Benjamin again seemingly answered by a hummingbird hovering outside the storm-drenched windows. Against the sounds of the city's emergency sirens and reports of breached levees, the backwards clock is shown in a basement, still working, as floodwaters begin to engulf it.
