The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Movie, 2008, The 2000s, Set in New Orleans
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is #7 of 13 in release order and #7 of 13 in chronological order in the David Fincher.
The story
Born under unusual circumstances, Benjamin Button springs into being as an elderly man in a New Orleans nursing home and ages in reverse. Twelve years after his birth, he meets Daisy, a child who flits in and out of his life as she grows up to be a dancer. Though he has all sorts of unusual adventures over the course of his life, it is his relationship with Daisy, and the hope that they will come together at the right time, that drives Benjamin forward.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button recap
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) follows a man born with the body of an old man in New Orleans in 1918, who grows younger as the decades pass. David Fincher directs from Eric Roth's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 short story, framed in 2005 by a dying woman whose daughter reads her his diary. Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, abandoned at birth by his father Thomas (Jason Flemyng) on the steps of a nursing home, where a caretaker named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) raises him. Cate Blanchett plays Daisy, who meets Benjamin as a child visiting her grandmother and becomes the love of his life. Benjamin works on a tugboat, has an affair in Russia with Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton), and survives a U-boat attack in the war. He and Daisy keep missing each other until, in the 1960s, they meet in the middle of their ages and have a daughter. Julia Ormond plays Caroline, Daisy's daughter, who learns the story is her own. It is Fincher's seventh feature, between Zodiac and The Social Network.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ending explained
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ends with Benjamin dying as an infant in Daisy's arms in 2003. Fearing he will be a child to his own daughter, he left Daisy and Caroline, and when he returns years later he is a young man. In his last years social workers find him, physically a boy with dementia, and Daisy moves into the old nursing home to care for him. Caroline learns that Benjamin was her father. Daisy dies as Katrina's floods reach a storeroom where the old backward-running station clock keeps ticking.
Post-credits scenes
No. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has no mid- or post-credits scene.
Where to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is streaming on Kanopy, Hoopla, and YouTube (free) in the US. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 7.8/10, Rotten Tomatoes 72%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Zodiac, before The Social Network.
- Chronological order: after Zodiac, before The Social Network.
Cast
- Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button
- Cate Blanchett as Daisy Fuller
- Taraji P. Henson as Queenie
- Julia Ormond as Caroline Fuller
- Jason Flemyng as Thomas Button
- Tilda Swinton as Elizabeth Abbott
- Mahershala Ali as Tizzy Weathers
- Jared Harris as Captain Mike
- Elias Koteas as Monsieur Gateau
- Phyllis Somerville as Grandma Fuller
- Faune Chambers Watkins as Dorothy Baker
- Donna DuPlantier as Blanche Devereux
Directed by David Fincher.