Benjamin Button on New Years Eve

It just dawned on me this morning; how ironic it was seeing Benjamin Button yesterday (Dec. 31). It is a movie all about time, growing old, regrets, forgiveness, life. Its is about the fact that a life is not summed up simply by adding up its number of years, so much more than just the ticking of time's clock, even the clock in the New Orleans train station which was deliberately set up to run backwards. The film is not meant to be believed in its scientific proposal that this could actually happen--though coming out on Christmas surely does allude to another amazing birth that defies science as well--it is meant as a metaphor for growing old and the tensions and struggles that come with it.

The movie really only has one gimmick, and that is Benjamin growing younger as everyone else grows older. It doesn't mean he lives longer than anyone else, it doesn't mean that is special in any ways beyond that--he doesn't invent something, meet presidents, or change history. It is a normal story of a life, love, pain, growing old, and of course one of its major themes is death. In the movie death is something that happens to all of us, its just a matter of time, and it is painful, but it is meant to be. As one character says to Benjamin "Death happens to those we love so we can appreciate how much they mean to us."

I felt that even bigger than the theme of death though was the theme of change. Throughout the movie the pain, struggle comes as a result of change--"Why does everything have to change, why can't it just stay just like this"; "I hate growing old"--things like that. Sentiments that are surely universal, and hit me hard. 

There is also the theme of forgiveness. People throughout the movie are encouraged to forgive those who wronged them: "Even if you are as mad as a mad dog, in the end you just have to let go"... Beautiful and true.

There are a few parallels here to Forrest Gump (same writer), but this movie is not trying to do the same thing at all. Where Forrest was a vehicle through which the audience experienced history, Button is a vehicle through which we are faced with the deepest questions of life, at the center of which is relationships. 

This is a good movie. Its long and could have been a little shorter but not much--maybe 15 mins--but its brilliantly executed from start to finish. Every frame is thought through and beautiful. In that way it reminded me of No Country for Old Men. You can just tell the director (David Fincher) casts a vision, and a team thought through every angle, color and background. I appreciate movies like this. 

Seeing this on New Years Eve was interesting; thinking about time, a clean slate, opportunities ahead, and ones missed in the past. It made me want to be a better husband, and better father. As I think about life and where its going my hope is that Jesus help me in doing what he himself commanded: to love God and love neighbor to the best of my ability to God's glory Matthew 22.37-39).

So rings true the words of Edith Lovejoy Pierce "We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them. The book is called Opportunity, its first chapter is New Year's Day."