Film

David Fincher’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novella is a curious case indeed: Where else can you find Kubrickian distance, bumper-sticker dialogue and a three-foot nonagenarian Brad Pitt, often in the same scene? Welcome to the wonderful, tragic life of Benjamin (Pitt), a man who ages backward and is consigned to a fleeting moment with his true love (Blanchett) before time steals her away. That the movie never devolves into Tuesdays with Benji is miraculous, though this deadpan Hallmark card still wants to jerk your tears. It just prefers remote manipulation over supercheap shots. Therein lies part of the problem.

For a melodrama concerned with emotional pain, this fairy tale favors formal trickery over human connection to a fault. When Fincher harnesses his prodigious chops to complex concepts—Fight Club, Zodiac—the result is first-class filmmaking. Without such intellectual grist, however, his flashy technique feels like hermetic virtuosity; even though Button deals with Big Themes, you’d swear the movie is being directed from deep inside a cryogenic tank. Showstopping sequences and state-of-the-art computerized aging can’t substitute for actually engaging with Button’s epic story of loss. Detachment can hold suffocating sentimentality at bay. It can also be a deathblow.