The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

A sumptuous and stirring romantic drama.

Plodding, facile and fails to connect.

It could have worked, had it ever snapped to life, but it doesn't. It just goes on and on and on and on and on and on. And on. You may even shake your watch to check it is still going. I know I did.

... I was pleasantly surprised.

Between the visuals and the Pitt factor, this is a movie your girlfriend will dig, but there's enough crazy fantasy stuff going on that I'd never call it a "chick flick."

The film was an unqualified success. Few movies lasting nearly three hours with quasi-downbeat material please both audiences and critics, yet it remains low on the lists of Pitt’s, Blanchett’s, Fincher’s, and Roth’s most notable efforts.

The effect, which isn’t fully grasped until absorbed in its entirety, plays like a moody fairy tale, romantic and magical, with flourishes both elegiac and unusual.

As [Benjamin] taught us, “I hope you live a life you’re proud of, [and] if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.”

Grief is inevitable; as we grow older, we'll inevitably attend more funerals than birthday parties, and the reward of a long life is watching everything but your own self be swept away by time and tide. But perhaps love is inevitable as well.