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Spoiler Points for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2009) [PG-13] 159 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.50
DVD Release Date: Unscheduled (please check back)
Spoiler Points for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
If you suddenly go the urge to rush out and buy a motorcycle, tour the back roads, and see America in the middle of the film, then this spoiler is for you
• Well, at some point in the film, it's going to occur to you that the woman, Caroline (Julia Ormond) reading the diary to her dying mother, Daisy (Cate Blanchett), in the hospital in New Orleans just hours before Hurricane Katrina hit is reading her father's words. And, you'll be right.
• Daisy doesn't want to die without her daughter knowing her real father. So, the diary begins with the birth of Benjamin Button as told by her father in his own words. She reads about him growing up, meeting the 7-year old Daisy, and falling in love. Then he goes off on Captain Mike's tug boat, explores the world, and meets a fantastic woman, Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton) with whom he engages in an affair until the start of WWII. He sends postcards from everywhere back to Daisy. When the war ends, Benjamin (Brad Pitt) returns home, and learns that Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) is his father. He wants him to take over the Button factory—which makes buttons. Daisy (Cate Blanchett) visits and falls for him, but he doesn't want to get involved with her just yet. She's furious and returns to New York. Almost immediately, she hooks up with a fellow she meets. She's become quite a famous dancer.
• Thomas Button dies leaving everything to Benjamin. Benjamin decides to go see Daisy in NYC, but finds her gruff and involved with herself and the new guy. He leaves feeling sad and alone.
• Years later, Daisy's in Paris and is hit and injured by a taxi. Benjamin travels over to see her. She furious because she doesn't want him to see her this way. She tells him to leave. He obliges, sort of, hanging around a while in the background looking out for her.
• Daisy returns to New Orleans, her dance career ruined, and meets up with Benjamin. He's looking great and younger than ever. She begs him to have her, and he says "Absolutely" unlike the last time. They strike up a relationship that's akin to marriage though they never marry. They move into a duplex and live a wonderful life. She starts a ballet studio and teaches, he helps Queenie run the nursing home and takes care of the Button business.
• He keeps getting younger and Daisy keeps getting older. Queenie dies, and Benjamin is in a funk. Daisy gets pregnant, but he's not sure he can be a father. What happens when he's a toddler at the same time as his daughter? He worries constantly about this; and, just when he's the spitting image of James Dean, he sells everything and leaves it for Daisy and Caroline. He heads off on his motorcycle to explore the world again, this time through the body of a teen, but the mind of a grown man. He sends Caroline postcards from everywhere, and sends her messages on her birthdays, which Daisy never does share with her.
• At one point, he returns. He's too curious to see how Caroline is turning out. He finds that Daisy is now married to a gentleman—Benjamin wanted her to have a real father—and things are going well. He talks to Caroline, but they never reveal to her, that he's her real father. Who'd believe them anyway since he looked 17. He mentions he's staying in a nearby hotel, room 25. Much to his surprise, Daisy shows up for one more night of romance. Can you blame her?
• They part again, and it's the last time she sees him that he knows her.
• Daisy gets a call. A kid, named Benjamin, has been found living in a broken down place all by himself. He's malnourished and sick. He's in possession of a diary with her name in it a lot, so that's why the police call her. He is welcome to stay in the nursing home of his mother now being run by his step-sister. He's got no idea what's going on. He's forgetting things. He cannot remember his life. Doctors say he's got senile dementia like an old man. Eventually, Daisy moves in to take care of him full time. She reads to him like her grandmother had read to them when they were kids. He loves her like his mother, but eventually, he turns into a baby and then dies.
• Daisy has to fill in these last few years for Caroline herself since, obviously, Benjamin stopped writing in the diary when he no longer was able.
• At first Caroline is furious that her mother waited until now to share with her the story of her real father, but in the end she forgives her.
• At the point of Benjamin's death, the clock, made by the blind French clockmaker stops running.
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