The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Fincher turned F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 short story into a 2008 film that feels both intimate and epic. Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, a man born with the body of an old man who ages in reverse. Cate Blanchett is Daisy Fuller, the dancer who becomes his lifelong anchor. The movie spans from World War I to Hurricane Katrina, following Benjamin as he grows younger while everyone around him grows older. It cost $150 million to make and earned more than double that worldwide, picking up three Oscars for its makeup, visual effects, and production design.

Fincher shot the film primarily in New Orleans, using the city's architecture and atmosphere to ground a story that could have felt like pure fantasy. Alexandre Desplat's score weaves through the narrative with a melancholy warmth, while Claudio Miranda's cinematography captures both the grandeur of a hurricane and the intimacy of a single glance. The result is a meditation on time that asks whether love can exist outside the usual order of things. [edit]

On the day World War I ends in New Orleans, a baby is born with the appearance of a shriveled old man. His mother dies in childbirth, and his horrified father, Thomas Button, abandons him on the steps of a nursing home. Queenie, a kind-hearted worker at the home, finds the infant and decides to raise him as her own, naming him Benjamin. Despite his frail body, Benjamin grows up surrounded by the elderly residents, learning about life and death from people who are aging in the conventional direction.

As a child, Benjamin meets Daisy, a spirited young girl who visits her grandmother at the home. They form an unlikely bond, but Benjamin's condition forces him to leave home as a teenager to work on a tugboat. He travels the world, serving in World War II and having an affair with Elizabeth Abbott, the wife of a British spy. Meanwhile, Daisy becomes a successful dancer in New York. Their paths cross intermittently, but their ages never quite align. When Benjamin returns to New Orleans, he finds Daisy injured and struggling, and they finally come together in their 40s, when their physical ages match.

Their happiness is fleeting. As Benjamin grows younger and Daisy older, they realize their relationship cannot sustain the strain of his reverse aging. Benjamin eventually leaves, selling his father's business and traveling again, while Daisy marries someone else. The story is framed by Daisy's daughter Caroline reading Benjamin's diary to an elderly Daisy in a New Orleans hospital, as Hurricane Katrina approaches.[edit]