The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Much of the film's romantic and philosophical posture hinges on Benjamin and Daisy getting together at the right time, and they do so in an entirely satisfying way; by the time of consummation, with Brad Pitt now in full physical glory and Blanchett at her womanly peak, they - and the audience - are more than ready for it. But their passion is all the more pointedly ephemeral due to the consciousness of being headed in opposite physical directions. The necessary acceptance of this fact produces a sincerely and genuinely earned sense of melancholy about the transitive nature of love and life. - Variety

The movie left me with a wistful sense of longing - does nothing truly beautiful last? Perhaps we all pass through this life - and meet here - but once. Benjmain and Daisy only have a few blissful years together - she is growing older and he is growing younger, and they cannot help but grow apart. He leaves before this happens.

We might have a few more years - a few more decades even - than they do. Yet everyone and everything we love is fleeting. Everything is slowly falling apart. Time catches up with all of us and in the end, death rips us apart.

Why does this feel so unnatural? Why does this hurt so much? Deep down, something tells me that this is not the way things were meant to be. This atrophying world can't be all there is. We were made to last. Love lasts.

If you really are the product of a material universe, why don’t you feel at home in a world where you die and disintegrate? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did would that not strongly suggest that they were once not purely aquatic creatures? Why are we continually shocked and repulsed by death? Unless, indeed, something in us, is not temporal.

Tim Keller paraphrasing C. S. Lewis
in Death and the Christian Hope