Collateral Beauty can be best described as misguided. I can see the intentions of the story, I admire the subject that it's trying to tackle (that being child loss). Somehow, this fell short and unfortunately is a mess. Howard has a promising start to life. Tragically though, he loses his daughter to an illness and slowly his life begins to crumble. He writes letters to three abstractions of life: Love, Death and Time. His work colleagues notice this, and hire three actors to portray the physical representations of these abstractions in an attempt to help him...therapeutically I guess. That's all well and good, but when you use grief and bereavement as a plot device it should be handled with care. In this, they make the protagonist feel like he has mental issues so that his "friends" can continue working in the company. Call me old fashioned or sensible, but that's not ok. Suffering is a horrible process, Will Smith excellently conveys this and actually makes quite a powerful performance. Yet, beneath the narrative is this weird jolly undertone that makes it seem like you're watching a romantic comedy. If this was made ten or twenty years ago, it could've had a place. Now though? No. Evidently what attracted audiences was its stellar cast consisting of Will Smith, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Edward Norton, Naomie Harris, Keira Knightley...and more! It just keeps going! To be fair to them, they were all good. The preachy script about time, love and death just doesn't help them. Literally. "I wish I had more time so I can love and not fear death, but time is running out and time time timeeeeeee." Then the last five minutes happen and it's just nonsensical. Direction was solid, the whole film was well shot and was nice to look at. But...not enough I'm afraid. Watchable, it's not entirely a collateral mess. Oh, and what even is Collateral Beauty!? Stupid title. What's worse, is that they try to explain it in the film. Urghhhhh.
