'Collateral Beauty' Review

In Collateral Beauty successful advertising executive Howard suffers the devastating loss of his six year old daughter and Howard becomes out of touch with reality as he begins writing letters to Death, Time, and Love. Collateral Beauty's trailers lead you to believe that Howard is then visited by the physical embodiments of Death, Time, and Love but what actually takes place is quite different. I'm not sure if this will be considered a spoiler or not since this is revealed within twenty minutes and the setup of the film.

**Beginning of "spoilers"** 

If you're still reading then I assume you've either seen the movie already or simply don't care so without further ado, Howard's friends and co-workers decide they need to take action to snap Howard back to reality because they are at risk of losing their jobs and Howard is broken over the loss of his daughter. They then hire a private investigator who discovers a few of Howard's letters to Death, Time, and Love and the three friends hire three actors to pretend to be the physical manifestations of Death, Time, and Love so they can film him talking to them, digitally remove the actors, and show it to the executive board in hopes of getting Howard booted from his position for being mentally incapacitated. Yes, the plot of the movie is that stupid and these "friends" are total jerks but believe or not that's not even the actual plot twist of the movie. 

**End of "spoilers"**

I won't spoil the twist but it makes literally no sense and contradicts earlier events of the film. I went into Collateral Beauty expecting some sort of amalgamation of A Christmas Carol and Inside Out where a man is guided by physical representations of Death, Time, and Love but instead got something completely different and it was for the worse with this film's biggest problem being its structure and the script written by Allan Loeb.

Instead of being centered around a grieving Will Smith, the film spreads its focus among the entire ensemble attempting to give each character a substantial character arc when the supporting characters didn't really need one. Loeb also leaves out anything regarding Howard's daughter Olivia to avoid ruining a twist that didn't really HAVE to be the film's big twist and the result is that it's hard to truly sympathize with Howard's situation.

While there are well intentioned ideas and messages included in Collateral Beauty, the screenplay's just a mess from beginning to end. Collateral Beauty has gotten some pitiful reviews and I've seen some say it's one of the worst films of 2016 but I didn't think it was quite that bad. The film's well-shot and looks nice throughout thanks to Maryse Alberti and even though director David Frankel allowed this mess to happen, he does manage to draw out some sufficient performances from the all-star ensemble.

These accomplished actors bring forth some decent turns but don't expect awards worthy work or career best performances. Will Smith showcases a lot of emotional range but not enough time is spent around Howard to make you truly care about anything he's going through and Smith seems just out of touch as his character (take from that what you will). Edward Norton, Michael Peña, Kate Winslet are Howard's friends and co-workers Whit, Claire, and Simon, Naomie Harris plays grief support group leader Madeleine, and Keira Knightley, Jacob Latimore, and Helen Mirren bring forth the manifestations of Love, Time, and Death respectively. 

All these accomplished actors fail to make their characters resonate, the performances aren't bad but everything's played at surface level and that's not really what should be drawn from actors of this caliber. Everything put into Collateral Beauty is well-intentioned, but its idiotic story is a total waste of A-list talent that make it feel like a sappy Lifetime movie.

Film Assessment: D