Director Fincher Comes Into His Own with “Button” OR “Button” Defies Hollywood Conventions [for Sincerity]
By Destin Douglas
ddouglas
Staff Writer
Dir: David Fincher
Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett
4/5 stars
It’s not often these days that a filmmaker slows his pace, becoming more thoughtful, more humane and more delicate as he ages. Heavy-hitters like Lucas and Spielberg ride the coattails of their early successes into the dust, seeming to rely more on their place in the film canon than on their proven ability to tell a good story. Meanwhile, a number of hip, contemporary directors (Gondry, less so Aronosfky) seem to flounder in their own success, perhaps suffocated by fame and the spotlight. However, neither is the case with director David Fincher and his latest effort, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
Here we find a refreshing and legible look at the progression of a filmmaker who will one day inevitably be seen as one of the best and brightest of our era. Like many contemporary directors, Fincher got his start making music videos for pop sensations like Madonna and George Michael before offering up his first feature, “Alien 3.” Though it was a franchise film, Fincher still managed to leave a positive mark on the work and a genius career was hatched. He went on to direct a slew of successful films (“Se7en,” “The Game,” “Fight Club,” “Panic Room” and “Zodiac”), each – except maybe for “Panic Room” – a near-perfect work bearing Fincher’s deeply personal, and individualized, vision of a cohesive and ultimately terrible world. Until “Button,” Fincher gave us a world of pain and fear, paranoia and treachery, grotesque humanity with a touch of playful realism. In “Button,” however, we see Fincher refocusing his intensity and directorial style towards something new for him: timeless love.
Based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story, “Benjamin Button” tells the story of a man aging backwards, and the difficult task of finding his place in a world set against him. As Benjamin (Bradd Pitt) grows down, the world around him becomes strange and violent. We encounter death, war and love along with Benjamin as he drifts through life. His aged appearance forces strangers to assume he is wise beyond his actual years and Benjamin at times displays an almost Forest Gump naivetÈ.
Brad Pitt delivers a thoughtful and careful performance, rendering the character with an intense curiosity that goes a long way toward helping the audience swallow this unusual premise. Cate Blanchett plays Daisy, Benjamin’s timeless love interest, with grace and charisma. A ballet dancer with a flair for casual sex who gets ruined by hands of fate, Daisy is both Benjamin’s salvation and his curse: the embodiment of his ideal, and a constant reminder of how much he is destined to lose.
The film offers beautiful frames along with an almost classical feel. In his first major departure from longtime cinematographer Harris Savides, Fincher instead hired up-and-comer Claudio Miranda, who had previously served as low-level crew on most of Fincher’s feature work. Miranda proves himself beautifully here, infusing “Button” with the kind of sincere and poignant style the story begs for. The film is paced slower than many of its contemporaries, giving the audience time to appreciate the locations and scenery. Fincher and Miranda work hard to give these frames some sincere emotion, and it pays off – this might be one of the first films in a number of years that actually allows you to believe that the characters onscreen are in love. Make no mistake–“Benjamin Button” is far from a perfect film. But in today’s world of cookie-cutter rom-coms and halfhearted, piecemeal dramas, “Button” does represent something different. This is a film with a little heart; a film expertly crafted and beautifully told. It may not be exactly what an audience is dying to see, but it is certainly more thoughtful, significant and picturesque than most of what we’ve gotten in the last decade. In “Button,” we find a director coming into his own as a force of beauty, and creating a moment of cinematic magnificence that, while it may or may not be recognized this Oscar season, has surely carved out its own important space in the annals of American film.
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