Set on the day that Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, elderly Daisy Williams nee Fuller is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital.
Benjamin’s diary recounts his entire extraordinary life, through the unusual aspect of which was his aging backwards, being born an old man who was diagnosed with several aged diseases at birth and thus given little chance of survival, but who does survive and gets younger with time. Abandoned by his biological father, Thomas Button, after Benjamin’s biological mother died in childbirth, Benjamin was raised by Queenie, a black woman and caregiver at a seniors home. Daisy’s grandmother was a resident at that home, which is where she first met Benjamin. Although separated through the years, Daisy and Benjamin remain in contact throughout their lives, reconnecting in their forties when in age they finally match up. Some of the revelations in Benjamin’s diary are difficult for Caroline to read, especially as it relates to the time past this reconnection between Benjamin and Daisy, when Daisy gets older and Benjamin grows younger into his childhood years.
My grasp on this as a woman, is how Benjamin was able to be every man to Daisy that a number of men play in the average woman’s life. He was the older man and the father figure to her when they were in their twenties. He was her equal at their happiest when they found peace with themselves and one another in their forties. When he left after they had a child and came back to her while she was in her fifties he was then “the younger man” and therfore the younger lover and she his Mrs. Robinson. She even loved him as a Son and was able to give him a mother’s love as he aged into infancy. He was every man! Some women should be so lucky to have a Benjamin Button.
Great film!
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