I’d heard a lot about this one before actually watching it. It wasn’t a bad movie, all in all, but there wasn’t anything particularly moving about it. It’s based off a F. Scott Fitzgerald movie, which explains some of the richness with which the period–the people, places, zeitgeist of the early 20th century–is depicted. The effects that made the transformation of Benjamin Button from wrinkled and gnarled looking baby to a newborn old man was quite interesting. There is one scene where he leaves home, and although the old on the outside Benjamin already faintly looks like Brad Pitt, his body is still hunched and shriveled, which makes you wonder how they did it, how they grafted Brad Pitt’s face and expressions onto this wizened little body. It must have been similar to what they did for the Hobbits…

In any case, charming fable, but nothing particularly moving, despite the film being about love, life, loss, and the wonders of the human condition, vagaries of destiny, fate, love, all of that.

Performance by Brad Pitt was reasonably good, nothing extraordinary. Cate Blanchett seems to me to excel at whatever role she is given, and this one is no exception, though after seeing her in movies like “No One’s There” or whatever the Dylan fictional biopic was called, where she set a new bar for herself (if not the art of acting in general), this kind of role can only be disappointing in comparison.