Collateral Beauty is directed by David Frankel and written by Allan Loeb, starring an impressive cast – Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Michael Pena Naomie Harris and Jacon Latimore.
This movie is about Howard (played by Will Smith) who has lost his six-year-old daughter and thus stays away from social life, being too damaged after what happened. His friends co-workers (played by Edward Norton, Keira Knightley and Michael Pena) try to reconnect with him but realize it’s not possible so they decide to hire three actors to answer his letters to Love, Death and Time in order to prove that he is unfit to lead the company.
Why Death, Love and Time? The opening scene shows Howard before the tragedy and he explains something along those lines that we all need love, we all want more time and we are all afraid of death, this is what connects us all.
The three actors (played by Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley and Jacob Latimore) play Death, Love and Time and go talk to Howard who is in denial but somehow it gives him the strength to talk, to say what he has to say and to finally enter the group therapy that he passed in front of almost every night, it’s a first step even though he doesn’t have the strength to talk about his daughter yet in this group. As the story goes, you realize that Howard is not the only one to have problems but his friends too have some problems and each one takes care of giving instructions to an actor. You quickly realize that each of them is with the actor that plays the problem they are dealing with. The first one has to accept that he needs to tell his family that his cancer came back and that he is going to die. The second needs to realize that he can’t let his daughter out of his life and the third one needs to see that she still has time to make a family. They’re not just actors, doing their job but they also help all these characters. Which leads Howard to finally sign the papers and acknowledging his daughter’s death and the other characters to work on their problems.
The end reveals that Madeleine (played by Naomie Harris), the woman from the group therapy is Howard’s ex-wife, that scene is really beautiful, it’s the moment the two actually reconnect. And the end shows that the actress playing Death helped Madeleine when their daughter died, she told her not to miss the collateral beauty making us realize these actors really were Death, Love and Time.
I loved this movie, it was a beautiful story, very spiritual, that featured a world where everything was connected. Personifying Death, Love and Time was quite a surprise, making us think that they were just actors but then revealing they were exactly what they were playing.
The cast is absolutely wonderful, all of them bring something to their characters that makes us connect to them.
7/10 A beautiful movie
A Fistful Of Movies 