Blu-ray Review HTF Blu-ray Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

Yeah, he mentions that on the commentary. Despite that I think it was hard to understand her, I do think they made the right choice to go that way because it's accurate and the viewer is still able to follow the movie without being able to get 100% of everything she says.

 

[Carlo_M]

Agreed. And for those who really want to know what she says...you can always turn on subs.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Yeah. I've never got problems with turning on subtitles. I do it a fair amount when I'm watching British or Irish films, for example. But I think it goes against the grain in a film presentation to make a main narrative difficult to understand because you think it's more realistic--especially in a film featuring a man character who is aging backwards. Why strive for such authenticity in a tall tale when it creates a barrier of understanding with your audience? Seems illogical. The whole point of story-telling is to make sure your audience understands your story. Don't make it any harder than it needs to be.

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The one thing this movie has done for me is to have me returning to it daily in my mind asking questions about choices made by the director and screen-play writer in developing things the way they did. That's not necessarily a bad thing. My wife and I like to debate plot points and character development, etc. We've had a field day going over the various secondary characters, their reasons-for-being, particular plot devices and their use to develop the elusive point.

Maybe I'll watch it again someday with the commentary and see what kind of insights I might get. But that begs the issue: I should be more interested in the choices made by the characters on-screen than I am in choices made by the crew off-screen.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

We always watch with subs on (my wife's not a native English speaker, so it helps her and now I've gotten addicted -- um, *used* to it). I remember thinking about the issue of dialogue clarity while watching this film.

There have been a few movies over the years that I appreciated much more after re-watching with the commentary.

 

[RobertR]

I figured most of the people in the film got used to what was going on, Mike (aside from the usual film romantizitation of reality). People get used to a lot of incredible things after awhile (remember the big fuss about the first moon landing)? Those who knew him for only a short time weren’t affected by it. But what was happening to him did become a Big Profound Deal towards the end, when he and Daisy had to confront the implications of what was happening. That was the most moving part of the film for me—to see older and older Daisy confronting incredibly ever younger Benjamin face to face. I found it an interesting way to get me to think about the issue of human mortality.