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The Movie: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, released December 19

Th Buzz: Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are in a movie together! AAAAAAH! And Tilda Swinton’s in it, too! So much beauty and talent and AAAAH! Um… sorry. Ahem.This movie is also directed by David Fincher and based on an F. Scott Fitzgerald story about a man who ages backward. There’s great potential for literary, lyrical beauty, and I plan to write a paper about time traveling and its symbolic function in AAAAAH! Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett!

(see the trailer after the jump)

The Trailer:

The Review: A mostly-silent foreign-language trailer tells you that somebody–the studio, the marketing department–is insecure. Put too many ethnic sounds in there, and the rural folk might learn the picture’s in a diff’rent language. And then, hell fire! They might stay home! Let’s trick ‘em, ma, and make ‘em think Chuck Norris plays an evil submarine captain in act three! 

But when an English-language preview, especially for a movie starring two A-listers, is almost wordless, it suggests serious faith in the work. Take Benjamin Button: All you really get is this opening snatch of dialogue: “My name is Benjamin Button, and I was born under unusual circumstances. While everybody else was aging, I was getting younger. All alone.”

After that, it’s just music and a series of images of BB aging in reverse. In a way, this preview is giving away the whole movie, as so many others do, but here’s the thing: That line of dialogue invites us to picture the very same images we’re shown. Hearing about Benjamin Button, wouldn’t most of us ponder what he looked like as a wizened baby? Or an elderly coot just learning to walk?

The trailer gives us flashes of that journey without giving us too much plot: It lets us know the filmmakers are doing the imaginative work suggested by their premise, but it doesn’t tell us exactly how they’ve done it. We’re invited to keep thinking about the things we’re shown. (Personally, since I haven’t read the story, I’m wondering when BB will hit his exact middle-age, meaning he’s exactly the age he would have been had he grown older instead of younger. Do you know what I mean? The Pitt-Blanchett beauty explosion has confused me a little.)

Then there’s the Tim Burton-esque, children’s choir soundtrack, which replaces dialogue with ethereal mood. Coupled with striking images like a woman in a red gown dancing ballet in front of the moon, the music tells us, “This is an arty flick with serious heft, people. Get ready for some substance with your fantasy.”

I appreciate that the preview isn’t pandering with sex scenes and car chases. It’s assuming we’ll be excited by pretty movie stars in elegant situations, and guess what? I totally am. Thanks, trailer, for priming me for an assured, potent experience.

And that last exchange–”You’re so young. // Only on the outside.”–well… that just says, “We’re interested in themes!” And I am a sucker for that mess.

The Rating: 5 Latex Bald Caps (Out of 5)