For starters, I must say that almost 3 hours were a bit too much, even if the story did go through one lifetime in that time. The storyline just didn’t have enough content to keep the scenes interesting and many times it felt like they were extended too much, too slow motion. That put aside, the film was fantastic!

The story was beautiful, intriguing, peculiar, melancholic. Sometimes the scenes seemed to drag on a bit too long, but the last hour or so was so so beautiful and it pretty much made up for the first part of the film which I, for one reason or another, found a bit dull.

I think there could have been less interruptions to Benjamin’s story, cutting back to ‘real life’ (to the hospital) so often was unnecessary but again, as the story went on it became clearer and clearer why we were shown the dying mother and her daughter so often – they were very much part of the story as well. Still I thought it was irritating that there were so many interruptions.

Seeing Benjamin go through his life, getting younger as everybody else around him grew older, it was all just so sad. And his final scene, the way he died, it was so pure and innocent and at the same time so very heartbreaking.

To add all this the exceptionally beautiful music composed by Alexandre Desplat, I can’t help but like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, it had certain depth, and it got me thinking. Not many Hollywood films do that these days. :)

I had been looking forward to seeing this film for a while and watched it with my mother on the day of its release – Boxing Day. We were lucky to have arrived forty five minutes early because the queue had become tremendously long within twenty minutes of our arrival.

Overall, I loved TCCBB. It’s about a man named Benjamin who lives his life in reverse. He was born as a baby, wrinkly and plagued with a plethora of degenerative diseases and other ailments which generally befall the elderly, but as each day passes, he becomes younger and younger physically. At times the film did seem a little tedious and slow, however, its magic and beauty compensated for the aforementioned tenfold. I don’t know why but films that cover a person’s lifespan, from birth to death, always make me feel melancholy. This is a film about life, time and mortality and while this movie did not cause me to weep or tear up, it made an indelible impression on me. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button had an elegiac quality to it and an almost nihilistic style, which resulted in me leaving the cinema feeling a little pensive and sad. I recommend that people watch this film. Naturally there will be those who do not like it and consequently, are at a variance with my thoughts and opinions but it’s worth seeing if only to say you’ve watched one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year. While one may identify a parallel between Curious Case and Forrest Gump, I find them to be entirely different. Yes, certain aspects of Curious Case are redolent of Forrest Gump but Curious Case’s subject matter is a lot deeper in my opinion.

Additionally, Alexandre Desplat’s score for the movie was wistful, mysterious and spellbinding. Despite hearing the full score three weeks back, I was mesmerised by how wonderfully the tracks fit with their respective scenes in the film. The cinematography was spectacular too. It was all very poetic, like one huge work of art. That said, TCCBB certainly does have its flaws and platitudes and certain things seemed incongruous with the film, though I figured I should not be overly fastidious but appreciate it for its artistic beauty and brilliance.