I found Benjamin Button, the film, obnoxiously boring. But I loved the short story by F Scott Fitzgerald that the movie is (not) based on. I read it today on my new Kindle, a device that is making me read again. Thank you Jeff Bezos. I used to read a lot but since the ’90s the combination of active parenting and the Internet slowed my book reading to a crawl. Yet today, I was taking Friday afternoon off in Menorca, and had the new Kindle at hand. Being a fan of free content I went to ManyBooks.net and found The Curious Life of Benjamin Button, the story as one of the most downloaded books. I went on to download the story because even though I had been terribly disappointed by the movie, I could not believe that the author of The Great Gatsby, had written a character that was as dull as the one portrayed by Brad Pitt. And I was right. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which I encourage you to download here is funny, original, and if it had been expanded into a well scripted movie it would have had all the elements of excitement that the soporific movie directed by David Fincher does not have. What surprised me the most is how is it that a movie that has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with the story plot, can still be said to be that story turned into a film. Think of the many books you read turned into movies and after you read the story you will see how fundamental the differences in the plot between the two are. In any case I am sorry if you are one of the many who loved the movie. I guess we just don´t need to agree.
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JozhB on April 28, 2009 ·
I agree with you. Nice history and meaning, but the film was boring for me.
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Wendy Seltzer on April 27, 2009 ·
Thanks for the pointer to the original story — I wholly agree with your comparative assessment. Lots of other good reading at manybooks.net too. Sometimes, the public domain is richer than Hollywood’s latest, even when they mine it freely.