A sure misty-eyed beauty – no thanks to one-note Will Smith
COLLATERAL BEAUTY Running time: 1hr 37min Starring: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, Helen Mirren, Naomie Harris, Keira Knightley, Jacob Latimore,Ann Dowd, Mary Beth Peil, Kylie Rogers, Liza Colon-Zayas, Natalie Gold Director: David Frankel EVEN if it hadn’t come along so soon after Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan’s symphonic drama about a father emotionally crippled by loss, Collateral Beauty would look like silly high-concept Hollywood grief porn. That’s not to say David Frankel’s all-star weepie doesn’t work on its own manipulative terms. Audiences unconcerned about their sugar levels might eat it up.
Will Smith plays Howard, an advertising wizard hailed at his Soho firm as the “resident poetphilosopher of product”. Howard even gets a little misty-eyed at his own genius. Ditto the staff of millennial hipsters and Howard’s partners, Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet) and Simon (Michael Pena).
Cut to three years later and one not-so-subtle visual metaphor for total collapse – an elaborate domino structure toppled with the flick of a single tile. It’s now two years since the death of Howard’s six-year-old daughter, and he has returned to work in body if not in spirit or mind. The other partners are in a jam so as much as they care about their friend and colleague, they manoeuvre to have him declared incompetent.
The movie somehow dances around the pain-for-gain callousness of that scheme by showing Whit, Claire and Simon to be each trapped in his or her own unhappy situation. All of their plot-lines are more absorbing than Howard’s. Howard also writes letters to Love, Time and Death.
The pathos of the situation and the lush strings of Theodore Shapiro’s relentless score occasionally manage to get past the contrivances long enough to foster some emotional involvement. But Smith’s one-note performance makes Howard more of an emoji for unimaginable loss than a character we come to care much about.
That makes it a relief when Whit has the brainwave of hiring three struggling actors, Amy (Keira Knightley), Raffi (Jacob Latimore) and Brigitte (Helen Mirren), to impersonate Love, Time and Death, respectively. It’s a ludicrous plot device, but at least it gives the film some fresh spark. The ensuing developments become predictable, as Howard is revealed to be far more intuitive than he appears, and naturally, personal breakthroughs of several shades occur. Audiences who enjoy smiling through tears, and don’t mind having their buttons pushed in obvious ways, could probably do a lot worse. – The Hollywood Reporter