12/30: finally understanding something

I've read "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" by Fitzgerald a number of times over the years. And I'm puzzled afresh every time: why is it so quick and insistently breezy, only to turn serious and sad at the very end? Today I think I understood why. I went to see the film that's very loosely based on the story, and everyone in the film works hard to do a good job. But the film seems to be aiming for the wrong tone and scale. Unlike the short story, it tries to be epic, and it saturates itself with poignancy. And it doesn't work. The subject matter is both so odd (a man who ages backwards) and cutting-to-the-quick (mortality) that maybe one of the only ways to keep the story afloat and keep it from becoming melodramatic or sentimental is to be quick, breezy, and serious only at the end. A genius move on Fitzgerald's part, though I don't think I would have realized it without seeing a film that tried an alternate route.