Across his filmography, David Fincher‟s work has been noted as dark,
foreboding, chilly, cynical, cutting, and irreverent. The Curious Case of Benjamin
Button is a striking anomaly in his filmography as the allure of the project makes some
sense, but the execution is a lush, unabashed romance bubbling with mawkish
sentiment. The movie is graceful, beautiful, poetic, and yet oddly distant. The whole
production feels gilded as Fincher made a deeply moving film out of a fairly terrible
script. The most curious thing about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is how it
manages to be a tearjerker despite its craven desire to elicit emotion from a director who
rejects sentimentality