So, it’s almost the weekend again! That means you’ll finally have more time on your hands to go to the cinema and catch up on the new releases. Today’s film review is Collateral Beauty.

Synopsis 

Howard, played by Will Smith, is a marketing guru. He works as the head of a very successful agency where he’s sort of an inspiration to his workers, always urging them to do more than simply “Sell sh*t.” Howard repetitively assures them that advertising is less about sales and more about connecting. Three years after, however, the situation changes when he’s faced with the death of his young daughter. Howard becomes a wreck of a man who shows up to work to build elaborate domino tower patterns, if he does at all! We find Howard faced with an existential collapse where he distanced himself from his friends and spends most of his time racing aimlessly with his bike.

Howard’s coworkers become wary of his sanity and his capability of doing his job efficiently, so they choose to hire a theater troupe to gaslight Howard and hold him unfit to lead the company. In the movie, we learn that Howard has been writing letters to love, death and time. That is why Howard’s coworkers choose to hire the actors, because they supposedly will tail Howard and manifest his grief in physical form. Brigitte (Helen Mirren) is an old-school hippie type who dives into the role of Death, Raffi (Jacob Latimore) is the kid who stands for Time, and Amy (Keira Knightley) portrays Love, despite her misgivings about what they’ve been hired to do. Together, the three actors start to validate Howard’s suspicions that he might be going insane for real through a series of contentious encounters.

Emotional but Underwritten

In case you haven’t noticed yet, the movie draws back on Christmas Carol, with a more believable story line. William Smith does an amazing job in portraying the role that you find yourself grieving for his daughter; the acting of all the characters was honestly spot on! However, the movie seemed to lack quality. At some points, it was really hard to keep watching. It got really boring as a lot of time is wasted on unnecessary scenes and dialogues that are either marginal or not related to the main story. The movie also lacks depth. The main issues in the movie; death, time and love are discussed rather superficially and the related dialogues are short.

Collateral Beauty, however, surprises us with a plot twist at the very end that was rather unexpected in a good way! It’s an overall decent movie, however, it’s only worth a one time watch, nothing more for the lack of its depth! So if you’re looking to get your heart overjoyed with excitement over a movie, then Collateral Beauty is not the one for you!

Runtime: 1h, 37mins

Genre: Drama