Alex Gionis -- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- Short Story vs. Film

  You are definitely right that almost everything except the basic premise
  was changed in going from the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story to the David Fincher
  film and you have some good ideas about why some of the specific changes 
  were made.  You also rightly point out that the short story is mostly *humorous*
  in tone, which is not true at all of the movie.  In fact, it's possible to trace
  that difference back to the Mark Twain quotation that was included in the 
  prompt for the assignment.  I think it's necessary to recall that Twain was first
  and foremost a "humorist" and a satirist -- his first goal in almost everything 
  he said and wrote was *to make people laugh* (at others and at themselves) 
  and then to get them to think about how silly a lot of their preconceptions 
  and actions are.   So it seems to me that his idea that aging in reverse 
  would lead to an "infinitely happier life" is not a serious proposal. It's 
  a way to get us to laugh about the indignities of aging.  He wants us to think 
  about whether being young is really any better than being old and whether life 
  really would be any better "in reverse."    Given that, you can see that the 
  Fitzgerald story is pretty clearly a sort of "thought experiment" designed to 
  lead the reader to refute Twain's literal claim through humor. 

  The main issues I see is that you have not discussed some of the other really
  important ways that the story differs from the film and you don't accurately
  describe how the story ends (which ends up being pretty similar to the movie,
  after all).    

  For example, the film basically says nothing about how, or even whether, 
  Benjamin might have received a normal education.  But the story goes 
  into Benjamin's early attempt to enroll as a student at Yale (where he is 
  essentially not allowed to remain once he appears on campus as an old man).  
  It then describes his later time at Harvard, where after he has de-aged enough
  to pass as a real college student, he is the star of the football team as a 
  freshman.  But following that, he gets smaller and weaker as he ages in reverse 
  and he can't legitmately make the team any more in subsequent years (although 
  he is kept because of his earlier successes).  After a year or two more, he
  wants to go back to prep school since he can't do college-level work any more.

  The story also has Benjamin serving in the army in the Spanish-American 
  war and participating in the famous battle of San Juan Hill with Teddy 
  Roosevelt.  But then he regresses so far in age that he appears to be only 
  16 when he is recalled to service as a brigade commander for World War I, 
  so his son has to come and take him home in disgrace.  

  All these episodes show clearly, I think, that Fitzgerald is emphasizing
  the ways Benjamin's condition makes it impossible for him to have a successful,
  normal life because he is so out of step with everyone else.  But he's doing
  it all in a humorous way!
 
  Another much smaller point -- the wife's name in the story is Hildegarde, not
  "Hildegrade" as you wrote mostly.

  Technically, the writing here is mostly very good though.    

  Content -- B-

  Structure/Mechanics -- A-