The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In August 2005, an 81-year-old Daisy (Cate Blanchett) is on her deathbed with her 37-year-old daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina approaches. Daisy tells Caroline the story of a blind clockmaker named Gateau (Elias Koteas), who was commissioned to create a clock to hang in the New Orleans train station. After receiving news of his son's death in World War I, he continued work on his clock, but intentionally designed it to run backward, in the hope that it would bring back those who died in the war. After her story, Daisy asks Caroline to read aloud from a diary containing photographs and postcards written by Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt). Caroline begins to read as the story transitions to Benjamin's narration.On November 11, 1918, just as the people of New Orleans are celebrating the end of the WWI, a baby boy is born with the appearance and physical maladies of an 85-year-old man. The mother of the baby dies shortly after giving birth, and the father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng), takes the baby and abandons him on the porch of a nursing home. Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) and Tizzy (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a couple who work at the nursing home, find the baby. Queenie, who is unable to conceive, decides to take the baby in as her own and be his mother, against Tizzy's wishes. She names the baby Benjamin.Over the course of the story, Benjamin begins to biologically grow younger. In the 1920s, he makes friends with Ngunda Oti, a man who used to sit by a river, and Mrs. Maple, a woman in her seventies who loves music. He also finds out Tizzy's grandfather worked for John Wilkes Booth. In 1930, while still appearing to be 73, Benjamin meets a 6-year-old girl named Daisy (Elle Fanning), whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. The children play together and listen to Daisy's grandmother read from a storybook. In 1934, just as Mrs. Maple dies, Benjamin goes to work on a tugboat on the docks of New Orleans for a tattoo artist, Captain Mike (Jared Harris). In their free time, the captain takes him to a bar for a drink and to have sex with prostitutes. For the first time, Benjamin meets Thomas Button, who does not reveal that he is Benjamin's father. In 1936, after making friends with a man who had been struck by lightning 7 times, Mr. Daws, Benjamin leaves New Orleans with the tugboat crew for a long-term work engagement. Upon Daisy's request, he sends her postcards from his travels. While in the Russian port city of Murmansk, he writes to Daisy that he has fallen in love. He begins an affair with the older, married Elizabeth Abbott (Tilda Swinton), who used to swim as a 19-year-old. On December 8, 1941 she breaks it off, leaving him a note only telling him "It was nice to have met you."While in Russia, Benjamin and the rest of the tugboat crew hear of the Pearl Harbor attack. Captain Mike tells his crew that the Chelsea, his tugboat, has been commissioned into the United States Navy. They work through the war hauling damaged ships until one day they come upon a ship carrying 1,300 men that has been split by a torpedo. They attack the U-boat that had sunk the ship with their single mounted machine gun, exchanging fire until Captain Mike is severely injured at the helm and lets go of the controls. The ship goes to full speed and rams the U-boat, sinking both the U-boat and the Chelsea. Captain Mike and every member of the crew except Benjamin and another man perish.In 1945, Benjamin returns to New Orleans, and learns that the 21-year-old Daisy has become a successful ballet dancer in New York City, and that Tizzy just passed away. In 1947, Benjamin meets Thomas Button again, who is dying. He reveals he is his father and gives him his house, his button factory and other possessions, before he dies. In 1951, Benjamin comes to New York to meet Daisy at a performance, and finds Daisy has fallen in love with a fellow dancer, and tries to accept that their lives have separated. Daisy's dance career is ended in 1957 by an accident in Paris, explained as a series of seemingly unrelated events. She is hit by a taxi cab that breaks her leg in five places. When Benjamin goes to see her, Daisy is amazed at his youthful appearance, but frustrated at her own injuries; she turns him away by telling Benjamin to stay out of her life. In 1962, Daisy returns to New Orleans and reunites with Benjamin. Now the same physical age, they fall in love and move into an apartment together. They experience the 1960s together, in large part blissfully but increasingly aware of Benjamin growing younger while Daisy grows older. In 1967, Benjamin is informed that Queenie died and Daisy is pregnant. In 1968, Daisy gives birth to a girl, Caroline. In 1969, Benjamin, believing he cannot be a father figure to his daughter due to his reverse aging, and not wanting to burden Daisy with having to raise two children, sells his belongings, and leaves the proceeds to Daisy and Caroline. He leaves them both and travels to India. After reading this account, Caroline learns that Benjamin is her father. She is upset that Daisy took such a long time to inform her, but finds that Benjamin sent her a postcard from everywhere for each of her birthdays expressing his love for his daughter.In 1980, Benjamin, now appearing about 23, returns to meet Daisy in her dance studio. The 56-year-old Daisy is now married to Robert Williams, a kind, supportive man, to Benjamin's relief. Daisy introduces Benjamin to Robert and the 12-year-old Caroline as a long-time family friend. Daisy and Benjamin then meet privately in Benjamin's hotel where they share their passion for each other, but they realize that their lives must remain separate. Benjamin departs again and continues to grow younger. In 1991, Daisy receives a phone call from social workers. They inform her that they found Benjamin — now a young 12-year-old — living in a condemned building, and that they called her because they saw her name mentioned frequently in his diary. The social workers believe that he has dementia as he sometimes forgets that he had just eaten and cannot remember Daisy or much of his past. Daisy moves into the nursing home where Benjamin grew up and takes care of him through the 1990s as he becomes a confused 5-year-old boy with a growing temper, then a toddler learning to walk.In 2002, Mr. Gateau's old clock is removed from the train station. Shortly afterward, in the spring of 2003, the 84-year-old Benjamin, who is now physically an infant, closes his eyes as to sleep and dies in Daisy's arms. At the moment before Benjamin dies, Daisy claims to have seen in his eyes that he recognized who she is. Finally, the 2005 hurricane cuts the electrical system. As Caroline briefly leaves the room, Daisy passes away, her wish of seeing Benjamin again seemingly answered by a hummingbird hovering outside the storm-drenched windows, just as the sounds of the city's emergency sirens and reports of breached levees are heard.All of the people Benjamin met in his travels through a backwards life are shown once more, with Benjamin narrating what each of them had been born to do. The backwards clock is then shown in a basement, still working, as floodwaters envelop the storage room in which it is kept.