Benjamin Button is a weak entry in the otherwise very impressive resume of David Fincher. The man who built his well-deserved reputation with edgy, post-modern and existential thrillers decided to go the epic love story direction and ended up suffocating us in a bath of sucrose for almost three hours.

Every year, the Academy Awards surprise us by nominating and even awarding mediocre films for reasons that have more to do with politics than with quality. While i have yet to see Frost/Nixon and The Reader, i can already say that Benjamin Button had no place being nominated this year for best film.

The Curious Case tells the story of a man who ages in reverse. A beautiful and interesting concept (the film is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald), which Fincher unfortunately fails to turn into a consistent and solid experience. Some moments are touching, mainly when BB is either very old or very young, but everything in between (when Brad Pitt is being Brad Pitt) is filled with cliches, strange editing, poor acting and just feels amateurish and predictable. Fincher tried something new but stretched himself too far. In addition, the film’s length could have been cut by at least one hour and no substance would have been missed. On the contrary, it would have made the film stronger. Directors should only go for epic length if they are 100% sure they can fill it with quality, and not with cliches and cheap sentimental rubbish. For example, skip all that Forest Gump stuff with the mad captain as well as most of the scenes between Blanchett and Ormond. These scenes were excruciatinlgy bad and tiresome: how many times have we seen this set up before, the old woman telling her story to her mystified daughter and who miraculously manages to hang on until the last sentence has been read?

As i have stated before, i enjoy Brad Pitt when he plays a certain kind of role. But BB is not one of these. Here, he is back to his stoic worse, the type of performance we have seen from him in Meet Joe Black and Seven Years in Tibet. Cate Blanchett looks a bit confused throughout the film and her voice as an old woman was so grueling to listen to that i knew from the start i was going to have problems with this film. Tilda Swinton and Faune Chambers, on the other hand, provide welcomed moments of relief.

Perhaps The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not as bad as i make it sound. It is afterall somewhat entertaining, the cinematography deserves a nod, as do the Make-Up and Costumes. And perhaps i am letting my disappoinment with Fincher get in the way of a fair appraisal of the fillm. But when even my wife, who is much more of a sucker for these types of films than i am, finds faults with it, then at least one thing is clear: this is not the Oscar-worthy film that some have talked about.