(film adaptation directed by David Fincher, 2008)

Since this is the first of these, and also my favorite movie 'ever' for the meantime, I'll not so much do a review as an emotional rave. However, the most luxurious detail of this cinematic lovely is that everyone who likes it will find something different about it to love.

Not at all the pretty-boy flick some critics chalked it up to be, this immaculate film is a nod to the microcosms of greater depth, that 'good things come in small packages.' Why? Because it was based on a short work of fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and while the motion picture screenplay hardly follows the original story - and slightly skews its premiere premise - the script and its actors do grand justice to a rather complicated idea, braiding in a breadth of history and Americana myth.

From a personal standpoint, I knew the moment I saw the movie poster that this was a film I would love. Two of several theatrical trailers left me stunned in my cereal and quietly weeping, open-mouthed, over the milk. I went to the movie house alone, intending to bask in whatever was in store for me, sans the distraction of any close others.

What I learned from this movie was something about grace; as a dancer and longstanding fan of Cate Blanchett, I was neither surprised by her technical execution of the role of Daisy, nor by her emotional effusiveness in the part. Watching what is to my mind a highly accurate representation of that era's 'prima ballerina,' I was amazed by the romanticism, and lack of sheer athleticism, present in the work. While technique was still an obvious prerequisite, this was neither the focus of nor an obstacle to a dreamier artistic expression. To note, I feel that dance contemporarily has shifted commercially to keep up with extreme sports instead of extreme classicism; I fear that both polarities, however, are artistically defunct without each other.

My point in this observation is that I regained a remarkable and spontaneous affinity for the ballet I so heavily desired (and must have somehow known) as a child of only two. Had I not been watching Ms. Blanchett in character, another actress may not have provoked such intense sentiment...literally into my bones. The film is enough of a testament to the roots of dance to be considered a study, however inadvertent or wrist-wave-worthy the few performance scenes may be.

As for the rest, I was as perfectly smitten, though I must say that in a few years I think the make-up and special aging effects will look more amateur to a trained cinematic eye. Since this is less a contemporaneous concern and more a realistic projection, though, I'll admit its somewhat questionable relevance to a review overall. And as for some unpopular opinion that this lovely film was anything more than a scrapbook of Brad Pitt's bee-stung boyish good-looks, I say phthwffpppppt!! The golden-one's face appeared very little in this stint as it really is; he was quite old for most of it, and his person reprised by younger actors at the end. The unique portrait of Benjamin Button, as played here, dedicates itself to the beatific qualities of natural wisdom and age, blessed on an ever-sweeter face, as if not, for once, to waste youth on the young.

A fitting, and very moving, exception.