‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ is a film loosely adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story of the same name. The film starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett will be released (in the USA, presumably) on the 19th of December 2008.
This follows on the tradition of film-makers looking to short fiction for good story fodder: Annie Proulx’s story ‘Brokeback Mountain’ made a fine film; though at 25,000 words it is probably more of a novella. Alice Munro’s story ‘The Bear Came Over the Mountain’ was made into the film ‘Away From Her’ last year. Also the very powerful, Australia-set ‘Jindabyne’ was adapted from a Ray Carver story, ‘So Much Water So Close To Home’; it starred our own lovely Gabriel Byrne.
In ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’, Benjamin (Bradders) is born aging backwards which causes complications when he falls in love with a thirty year old woman (Cate). The pre-blurb says the film is ‘dark, romantic, and deals with mortality in a pretty unflattering way’. Sounds great to me!
