The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

(Ver Trailer de la película)

The film is directed by David Fincher, and stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. The film was released on December 25, 2008. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is set in New Orleans, Louisiana from the end of World War I on November 11, 1918 all the way to 2005. It follows the life of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), who is born with the appearance and physical limitations of a man who is 85 years old. Abandoned in a nursing home by his father, Thomas Button, Benjamin begins aging backward on the outside of his body. While in the home, he meets Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a young aspiring ballerina. As the film progresses, the two fall in love, while struggling to deal with the issue of one growing younger while the other grows older.

Nominally based upon the F. Scott Fitzgerald story of the same name, the film has very little resemblance to its source material beyond the premise[3]. Several writers have noted that the plot more closely resembles Andrew Sean Greer's novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli, though the early drafts of the script were completed before the book was published

The Story

The elderly Daisy (Cate Blanchett) is on her deathbed in a New Orleans, Louisiana hospital, just as Hurricane Katrina approaches the Gulf South in August 2005. She is accompanied by her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), and a nurse at the hospital. The television news broadcasts that a hurricane is approaching the region. As the storm outside intensifies, Daisy asks her daughter to read aloud from a diary containing photographs and postcards written by Benjamin Button. Caroline begins to read, and the story is then told from the point of view of Benjamin in his own voice. The preface of the movie tells the story of a blind clockmaker whose son was killed in battle in World War I. Wishing to reverse time, the clockmaker constructs the clock so that its hands travel backward. The memorial clock is installed in a train station in New Orleans, its unveiling attended by President Theodore Roosevelt. Afterwards, the clockmaker closes his shop and is never heard from again.

On November 11, 1918, just as the people of New Orleans are celebrating the end of the Great War, 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 his father, Thomas Button, takes the baby and abandons him on the porch of a nursing home close to the docks, leaving $18 in his blanket. Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and Tizzy (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali) find the baby, as they are departing the nursing home. Queenie, who is unable to conceive, decides to take the baby in as her own, against Tizzy's wishes. Queenie brings the baby into the old age home and gives the baby the name of "Benjamin" (Brad Pitt).

Over the course of the story, Benjamin begins to physically grow younger. In 1930, while appearing to be an old man, he meets a young girl, Daisy, whose grandmother lives in the home. Daisy visits the nursing home often and points out how different Benjamin is, despite the appearance of his old age. Daisy's grandmother reads bedtime stories out of a picture storybook for both Benjamin and Daisy. Benjamin and Daisy also play as children, but this is frowned upon by Daisy's grandmother due to the appearance of age differences.

Benjamin starts to work on a tug boat on the docks of New Orleans for a Captain Mike (Jared Harris). Benjamin then finally learns to drink alcohol, visit bars and a brothel with Captain Mike. He also meets Thomas Button, not knowing that this is his father. Later, Benjamin departs New Orleans with the tugboat crew for a long-term work engagement. Before he leaves, Daisy makes him promise to write to her from "everywhere". In Russia, Benjamin meets a British woman by the name of Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton) in the hotel where they are both staying and falls in love with her. Since Elizabeth is already married, with her husband working as a spy for the British government, they carry on their affair at night in the hotel. One day, on the morning of December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, Elizabeth leaves unexpectedly and leaves a note behind: "It was nice to have met you."