Watch Collateral Beauty

Collateral Beauty is a 2016 American drama film, directed by David Frankel, with a star-studded cast including Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris, Helen Mirren, and Keira Knightley. The movie follows the story of Howard Inlet, a New York advertising executive who loses his six-year-old daughter to a rare form of cancer. The film explores themes of grief, healing, and the human condition.

The movie opens up with Howard (played by Will Smith) giving a presentation to his colleagues at a top advertising agency he co-founded. He presents an emotional ad campaign about love, time, and death, but soon after his daughter's death, he begins to suffer from deep depression and withdraws from his work and his life. He starts writing letters to love, time, and death, blaming them for his loss and questioning their existence. At this stage, his friends start to fear for his well-being and the future of the company.

In an attempt to help Howard, his three closest friends (Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña) hire three actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore) to play the roles of love, time, and death. They secretly hope that by confronting these concepts that Howard himself wrote about, he will be able to heal and come back to his senses.

Each of the actors, who are introduced to Howard one by one, represents one of the three concepts. Love is portrayed by Knightley, Time is portrayed by Latimore, and Death is portrayed by Mirren. Through their interactions with Howard, they try to help him find his way forward and make sense of what has happened in his life. The conversations between Howard and the three actors are emotional and thought-provoking, and over time the actors start to develop a genuine connection with Howard.

Meanwhile, Howard's friends are dealing with their own issues in their personal lives. Norton's character is struggling to save the company, which Howard's withdrawal has put in jeopardy. Winslet's character is trying to have a child but is also trying to juggle a stressful job. And Peña's character is going through a crisis in his marriage.

Through its portrayal of the different characters dealing with their own crises and through its exploration of the themes of love, time, and death, Collateral Beauty delivers a poignant and heart-rending cinematic experience. The movie delves into the complex emotions that follow grief, such as anger, guilt, and despair, and portrays the different ways in which individuals cope with loss.

As the story unfolds, we see that Howard's journey of self-discovery and acceptance has a ripple effect on his friends, as they also learn to confront their own issues head-on. The actors who play the roles of love, time, and death are not mere caricatures, but well-drawn and fully realized characters in their rights.

In conclusion, Collateral Beauty is a moving and thought-provoking drama that explores profound, existential themes. It is an excellent showcase of Smith's acting range-- portraying a man dealing with the impossible burden of grief. A triumph of a film, that is guaranteed to resonate with, and touch deeply the heart of, anyone who has experienced loss.

Collateral Beauty is a 2016 drama with a runtime of 1 hour and 36 minutes. It has received poor reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 6.8 and a MetaScore of 23.