The Big Picture

• The film adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button emphasizes the loneliness and inevitability of Benjamin's aging backwards, creating a tragic tone that contrasts with Fitzgerald's satirical comedy.
• Benjamin's life is defined by passive acceptance and learned helplessness, as he watches major moments pass by and connections wither away, except for his enduring love for Daisy.
• While Fitzgerald mocked the hollow lives of the elites, Fincher's heartfelt portrayal of embracing love and valuing relationships is unexpected from a director known for cynicism.

Getting old sucks, and then you die. The absolute worst part of being alive comes right before the end, and that's such a tragedy. How is one supposed to appreciate their long road of life if the last stretch is so miserable? These were thoughts that F. Scott Fitzgerald had when he sat down to formulate one of his most famous short stories, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," telling the saga of a man who ages backwards in life. A near century later, acclaimed director David Fincher helmed a major film adaptation of the story, and he made numerous changes to it to make it more cinematic. While the short story focused on being a straightforward account of Benjamin's success in family, business, and world traveling, Fincher turned it into a romantic drama that's more overtly existential in its ruminations on Benjamin's predicament. To be permanently out of time with yourself is an indescribable sadness, and Fincher's film uses the classic Hollywood romance formula as the backbone for one of his most open-hearted films.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with consequences.

What Was the Short Story Originally About?

Fitzgerald's original story starts with Benjamin Button as a 70-year-old baby, born to a rich father who is embarrassed about his existence. He's most fixated on the sense of self-respect his family must project in high society, and having a 5'8" tall newborn who can already talk cramps his style. Benjamin spends most of his early childhood forced to do childish things that don't interest him, as he'd rather smoke cigars and talk with his grandparents. As he starts to de-age, he finds shallow love with a woman named Hildegarde, who's only into him because he looks 50. Their love inevitably deteriorates as he gets younger, but she gets older, and Benjamin values embracing his youth above all else. This lust for life drives him to abandon Hildegarde in favor of joining the army and fighting in the Spanish-American War of 1898. When he returns from war, he goes to college to become a huge football star, only to continuously de-age out of college. He gradually shrinks into being a baby and then ceases to remember anything, quietly fading away in his crib.

While the events that play out are almost universally depressing, with the moments of joy or elation short-lived, the story's tone is pitched more towards irony and satirical comedy. The constant underlying tension is one of society being angry at you for not living up to what you "should" be doing. Every person that Benjamin knows on an intimate level, from his father to his wife to his own son Roscoe, grows to hate him, mostly for how he never "acts his age," and causes gossip among their associates. No matter what Benjamin tries to do with his life, he is forever undermined by his physical appearance not matching with his experiences. He's denied his own army experience and his college admission because he looks far too young to have done any of those things, and he's utterly helpless to do anything about it. Ultimately, Benjamin's life is defined as one of stunted potential, oppressive social expectations, and a prolonged cosmic joke where everyone is silently mocking him. If there's any change that separates the original story from Fincher's adaptation, it's a matter of tone.

George Clooney Hated That Brad Pitt Beat Him Out for This Role

“I may be an outlaw, darlin’ but you’re the one stealin' my heart.”

David Fincher's Movie Emphasizes Benjamin Button's Loneliness

Fincher's film starts with Benjamin (Brad Pitt), born on the eve of Armistice Day, 1918, as an infant with an 80-year-old baby's body that's on the verge of death. His mom dies in childbirth, and his father (Jason Flemyng) is horrified by his appearance, dumping him off at an elderly care home, where he's found by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), who becomes a mother figure to Benjamin. He grows up in this home, constantly surrounded by old people dying while aging backward, and meets a young girl named Daisy (Elle Fanning), with whom he forges a special relationship. Benjamin is driven to explore the outside world, and once he turns 17, he joins a tugboat crew, while engaging in an affair with a politician's wife (Tilda Swinton). Upon returning from World War II action, he reconnects with the now adult Daisy (Cate Blanchett), and the two attempt to have a romance, only for Benjamin's insecurities to push Daisy away. Years pass, and she and Benjamin cross paths again, where they finally commit to their long-standing love for each other. Their relationship ends with Daisy having a child and Benjamin leaving them behind, for fear of his daughter seeing him de-age even further. Benjamin eventually devolves into a baby and dies in old Daisy's arms at 84 years old.

Benjamin's life in the film is defined as one of imminent loneliness, of time seeping away from him. He leads a life passively accepting his condition and helplessly living at the hands of time. Pitt's performance is tender in how insular it is. Benjamin learns the lesson that "we're meant to lose the people we love," and that results in a permanent detachment from even those he cares for. The pacing of the film creates the feeling that every major moment in his life glides right by him as he's only capable of looking from his own perspective, with almost every connection in his life being unceremoniously taken from him. The one exception, of course, is Daisy, the first person to tell him how different he was from everyone else, so he held onto the idea of her for as long as he could. In many ways, this film is David Fincher's version of a classic Hollywood romance, calling back to the days of Bette Davis and Now, Voyager and Stella Dallas in its marriage of earnest yearning with melodramatic plot manipulation, but tinged with Fincher's mistrust in how humans connect. Even in a film that makes you wait to see Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett kiss for well over an hour and a half, it's anchored by the knowledge that this connection will pass on into the void.

Where Fitzgerald Made Comedy, Fincher Made Tragedy

F. Scott Fitzgerald made a living mocking the hollow lives of the elites, pointing out their reputations for casual cruelty and hedonistic pleasure-seeking. For him to write a fable eviscerating their distaste for bodily imperfection and craving for clout was to be expected; for David Fincher to tell that same story in a way that honors its fable roots was less expected. Fincher is one of the most notoriously cynical directors in the business, from his tearing down of fragile masculinity in Fight Club to his blowing up of the public gamesmanship of romance in Gone Girl. For a guy who's gone on record saying that he thinks all people are "perverts," making a film this genuine in its preaching of embracing love and valuing the people who matter in your life is somehow the most bizarre thing he could have done in his career.

While Fitzgerald was happily dancing on the graves of America's moneybags, Fincher was weeping for all that we try to hold onto in the sands of time. His film opens and ends with the story of a man who invented a clock that spins backwards, in the hope of bringing back his son who died in World War I. One can't help but imagine Fincher seeing himself as that clockmaker, wishing he could use his directorial powers to hold onto those he loves the most.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is currently streaming on Paramount+.

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