In March 2007, production moved to Los Angeles for two more months of filming. Principal photography was targeted to last a total of 150 days. Additional time was needed at visual effects house Digital Domain to make the visual effects for the metamorphosis of Brad Pitt’s character to the infant stage. The director used a camera system called Contour, developed by Steve Perlman, to capture facial deformation data from live-action performances.
Several digital environments for the film were created by Matte World Digital, including multiple shots of the interior of the New Orleans train station, to show architectural alterations and deterioration throughout different eras. The train station was built as a 3D model and lighting and aging effects were added, using Next Limit’s Maxwell rendering software—an architectural visualization tool. Overall production was finished in September 2007.
Music
Main article: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (soundtrack)
The score to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was written by French composer Alexandre Desplat, who recorded his score with an 87-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage.
Release
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was originally slated for theatrical release in May 2008, but it was pushed back to November 26, 2008. The release date was moved again to December 25 in the United States, January 16, 2009 in Mexico, February 6 in the United Kingdom, February 13 in Italy and February 27 in South Africa.
Box office
On its opening day, the film opened in the number two position behind Marley & Me, in North America with $11,871,831 in 2,988 theaters with a $3,973 average. However, during its opening weekend, the film dropped to the third position behind Marley & Me and Bedtime Stories with $26,853,816 in 2,988 theaters with an $8,987 average. The film has come to gross $127.5 million domestically and $208.3 million in foreign markets, with a total gross of $335.8 million.
Home media
The film was released on DVD on May 5, 2009 by Paramount Home Entertainment, and on Blu-ray and 2-Disc DVD by The Criterion Collection. The Criterion release includes over three hours of special features, and a documentary about the making of the film.
As of November 1, 2009, the film had sold 2,515,722 DVD copies and had generated $41,196,515 in sales revenue.
Reception
Critical responseThe review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 72% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 256 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The consensus reads: “Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an epic fantasy tale with rich storytelling backed by fantastic performances.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 37 reviews, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. Yahoo! Movies reported the film received a B+ average score from critical consensus, based on 12 reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A− on scale of A to F.
Todd McCarthy of Variety magazine gave the film a positive review, calling it a “richly satisfying serving of deep-dish Hollywood storytelling.” Peter Howell of The Toronto Star says: “It’s been said that the unexamined life is not worth living. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button suggests an addendum: a life lived backwards can be far more enriching” and describes the film as “a magical and moving account of a man living his life resoundingly in reverse” and “moviemaking at its best.” Rod Yates of Empire awarded it five out of a possible five stars.
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter felt the film was “superbly made and winningly acted by Brad Pitt in his most impressive outing to date.” Honeycutt praised Fincher’s directing of the film and noted that the “cinematography wonderfully marries a palette of subdued earthen colors with the necessary CGI and other visual effects that place one in a magical past.” Honeycutt states the bottom line about Benjamin Button is that it is “an intimate epic about love and loss that is pure cinema.”
A. O. Scott of The New York Times states: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, more than two and a half hours long, sighs with longing and simmers with intrigue while investigating the philosophical conundrums and emotional paradoxes of its protagonist’s condition in a spirit that owes more to Jorge Luis Borges than to Fitzgerald.” Scott praised Fincher and writes “Building on the advances of pioneers like Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Robert Zemeckis, Mr. Fincher has added a dimension of delicacy and grace to digital filmmaking” and further states: “While it stands on the shoulders of breakthroughs like Minority Report, The Lord of the Rings and Forrest Gump, Benjamin Button may be the most dazzling such hybrid yet, precisely because it is the subtlest.” He also stated: “At the same time, like any other love—like any movie—it is shadowed by disappointment and fated to end.”
On the other hand, Anne Hornaday of The Washington Post states: “There’s no denying the sheer ambition and technical prowess of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. What’s less clear is whether it entirely earns its own inflated sense of self-importance” and further says, “It plays too safe when it should be letting its freak flag fly.” Kimberley Jones of the Austin Chronicle panned the film and stated, “Fincher’s selling us cheekboned movie stars frolicking in bedsheets and calling it a great love. I didn’t buy it for a second.” Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying that it is “a splendidly made film based on a profoundly mistaken premise. … the movie’s premise devalues any relationship, makes futile any friendship or romance, and spits, not into the face of destiny, but backward into the maw of time.”
Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian called it “166 minutes of twee tedium”, giving it one star out of five. Cosmo Landesman of the Sunday Times gave the film two out of five stars, writing: “The film’s premise serves no purpose. It’s a gimmick that goes on for nearly three hours … The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an anodyne Hollywood film that offers a safe and sanitised view of life and death.” James Christopher in The Times called it “a tedious marathon of smoke and mirrors. In terms of the basic requirements of three-reel drama the film lacks substance, credibility, a decent script and characters you might actually care for.” Derek Malcolm of London’s Evening Standard felt that “never at any point do you feel that there’s anything more to it than a very strange story traversed by a film-maker who knows what he is doing but not always why he is doing it.”
Accolades
At the 81st Academy Awards, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button received a leading 13 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Fincher, Best Actor for Pitt, and Best Supporting Actress for Taraji P. Henson, and won three, for Best Art Direction, Best Makeup, and Best Visual Effects.
Taraji P. Henson won Best Actress at the BET Awards for her role in the film combined with two other performances in Not Easily Broken, and The Family That Preys.
The film won all four awards it was nominated for at the 7th Visual Effects Society Awards, the categories of “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Feature Motion Picture,” “Best Single Visual Effect of the Year”, “Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Feature Motion Picture,” and “Outstanding Compositing in a Feature Motion Picture.”
