'The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button' (PG-13)(out of four)

There's a line in director David Fincher's fantasy drama "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" where the title character (Brad Pitt) introspectively says how our lives are defined by opportunities -- even the ones we miss.

But there's no question that Pitt, Fincher (Pitt's "Fight Club" and "Seven" director) or his co-stars -- including the wondrous Cate Blanchett -- have seized every opportunity here. For "Benjamin Button" is a sweeping cinematic opus the caliber of "Forrest Gump," where we experience through the eyes of an unusual man an extraordinary trek through the complicated thing we call life, examining the question of destiny and our purpose while here on Earth. And like life, "Benjamin Button" has it all: drama, comedy, love, loss, joy and sorrow. It's a full life that Benjamin lives, and when all is said and done, you can't help but think you've witness an incredibly moving piece of work.

Not surprisingly, this extraordinary tale comes from Eric Roth, the Oscar-winning "Forrest Gump" screenwriter who adapted his script from a short story by legendary author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Told in flashback from the bedside of a dying elderly woman, "Benjamin Button" begins after a short prologue about a blind clockmaker (Elias Koteas) who purposefully creates a clock for a public project that runs backward as a metaphor to turn back time after he suffers a devastating personal loss.

The tale serves as an appropriate springboard to the birth of Benjamin in New Orleans on the last day of World War I, a baby that has the startling physical characteristics of a man in his late 80s. Abandoned at a retirement home by his button-making father (Jason Flemyng), Benjamin is taken in by a housemaid named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), who raises the baby as her own. Despite his odd appearance, Benjamin fits completely into place at the home, with one big exception. As his contemporaries in appearance grow old and die, Benjamin becomes younger.

His path toward youth only inspires Benjamin to seek out answers, and he's intrigued by several different people along the way, including a young girl named Daisy (Elle Fanning), who's keenly aware that there's something different about Benjamin. After years of going their separate ways the two meet again, but as Daisy (Blanchett) has grown into adulthood and Benjamin a handsome and rugged middle-aged man. A romance between the two blooms, but soon enough, the two realize that they are on a crash course with destiny. That's because they're not able to freeze time at the crossroads of their lives. As Daisy is growing older, Benjamin is growing younger – and he fears that he'll be incapable of being the man Daisy wants him to be.

Like "Forrest Gump," "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" relies on special effects to tell its story, but "Button" is not nearly as visually complicated as "Gump" is. Benjamin's course through life is extraordinary no doubt, but at the same time he's not finding himself in the middle of historical moments meeting iconic figures. Instead, "Benjamin Button's" visuals come with the challenge of making us believe how a man can age backwards, and with the skills of the visual artists, Fincher and Pitt, the effects are presented masterfully.

While Pitt is covered with makeup and stunningly presented as a short, feeble old man, the power of his grounded performance is never once overshadowed by the film's stunning effects. And as over-exposed he's become because of his public exploits with Angelina Jolie, his acting is as good as it's ever been. There's never a distraction onscreen where you see Pitt the celebrity and Pitt the performer as one in the same. He's mesmerizing throughout as he completely disappears into the character.

The same goes for Blanchett, who's stunningly beautiful as Benjamin's longtime love. Like Pitt, it may be Blanchett's best performance to date, including her amazing scenes as the elderly Daisy in a New Orleans hospital room, set in 2003. Barely recognizable under her makeup, Daisy requests that her daughter, Caroline (Julia Ormond), read from a weathered, old journal compiled by Benjamin. And as isolated as those scenes are (which are made more intense by the looming threat of Hurricane Katrina, which is bearing down on the city), there's still plenty of inherent drama to be had, as Caroline learns of the profound effects Benjamin has had on so many lives.

The great thing about "Benjamin Button" is as much as it is Pitt and Blanchett's film, Fincher allows ample time for his vast array of supporting characters to develop. Henson gives a touching performance as Benjamin's surrogate mother, and Tilda Swinton turns up in a pivotal role as Benjamin's first real shot at romance. Jared Harris, the son of late acting legend Richard Harris, brings a likable swagger to Captain Mike, a tugboat operator who gives Benjamin his first job and helps give him his first taste of manhood.

At a 2 hour, 40 minute runtime, "Benjamin Button" never once feels overlong, although some people may get the sense at the end that Roth and Fincher didn't wrap up the story completely. It's a short, philosophical dialogue that, despite its open-endedness, still is profound.

But hey, if things were buttoned up so tight, it wouldn't be like life, would it? "Benjamin Button" doesn't pretend that it has all the answers to life, but it sure tells us a lot.