A Vermeer moment, lit by the filmmakers and cropped by my camera. We are looking at Daisy the moment Benjamin leaves her, not because she is getting older, but because he is getting younger. This is the premise of the film adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (1922): a child born old (November 11, 1918), only to grow younger over his remaining 85 years.
Benjamin gives his reasons for leaving Daisy: he wants their newly-born daughter to have a real father, which Benjamin didn't have (nor a mother, who died in childbirth) after his father took one look at him and left him on the steps of a New Orleans care home; but also, Benjamin doesn't want Daisy to have to look after him too, something she does eventually after a pre-teen Benjamin is brought to that same care home after he was found in an abandoned warehouse and displaying signs of dementia (Daisy's name and address were in Benjamin's diary, which Daisy had asked her daughter to read out to her, along with Benjamin's postcards, while Daisy is on her deathbed).
At 166 minutes, this is one of the longer films I have seen of late. Could it have been shorter? Of course. But it could have been longer too. If it were made today, it could have been commissioned by Netflix and shown over eight decade-themed episodes. Who knows -- it still might.
In 1980, when their daughter is twelve and Daisy is in her mid-50s and married to the man her daughter believes is her father, Benjamin, now T minus 23, returns from his world travels to visit Daisy at her dance school. Later that night she visits Benjamin at his hotel room and they make love. The last time we see Benjamin is in Daisy's arms some 23 years later, cradling him like the baby he now is -- this after Daisy had moved into the care home to look after him.
Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey (1890) came to mind while watching Benjamin Button, but more so Charly (1968), the story of a intellectually-impaired young man who is given an experimental surgery to increase his intelligence, only to discover that the results are temporary (the doctors knew but never told him). Complicating Charly's return to his former self is his now romantic relationship with his former night school teacher, Alice, who looks on during the final scene (which is also the opening scene) as Charly frolics on a busy playground.
The short story that inspired Charly -- Daniel Keyes's "Flowers for Algernon" (1958) -- was banned in many schools for its negative view of what was then referred to as "mental retardation". In some ways The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a corrective. Something we have learned over the years, something that has made our species stronger: relationships don't end, they just change.
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