Review: Collateral Beauty

Will Smith bikes a lot in Collateral Beauty. Sometimes he cries whilst biking. Mostly he's mad. It doesn't really matter for Collateral Beauty is a film architected to induce tears at every possible turn and yet one remains resolutely dry-eyed. For all its manipulations, at no point is there any satisfying emotional release, not even during its most cathartic moment.

Shame, really, since the premise is a promising riff on the Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life. In fact, Collateral Beauty feels very much like a star-studded, four-hankie glosser that Hollywood churned out decades ago. There's nothing inherently wrong with being old-fashioned, but the film's old-fashionedness and inability to marry its comic and dramatic elements curdle its potential into goopy treacle.

Smith plays Howard Inlet, first seen rousing his advertising company by reminding them their purpose is to connect with people and that everyone is connected by love, time and death: we long for love, we wish we had more time, and we fear death. Cut to three years later - the death of his daughter two years earlier has left Howard a ghost of his former self. At work, he barely speaks or acknowledges anyone, instead concentrating on building and then knocking down impressive domino displays. He's a source of concern for friends and business partners Whit (Edward Norton), Claire (Kate Winslet), and Simon (Michael Peña), who worry about the depths of his suffering and how it affects their company, which is losing accounts left, right and center. The company's only hope is a buyout offer which can't go through unless they get Howard to sign off on it or prove that he is mentally unsound to make such a decision.

After a private investigator they hired reveals that Howard has written letters to Love, Death and Time, Whit comes up with an idea to hire three actors to portray these abstractions and essentially gaslight Howard so they can prove his mental imbalance. It's an intriguing idea, especially since Helen Mirren's Brigitte, who takes on the role of Death, treats it as the most exhilarating piece of performance art and a chance to flex her Stella Adler technique. [Keira Knightley and charismatic newcomer Jacob Latimore assume the roles of Love and Time, respectively.] Mirren is so beautifully blithe that she energises the entire movie, and one wishes that director David Frankel and screenwriter Allan Loeb had focused more on the interactions between the trio of actors and Howard as their scenes have a better handle on the mingling of comedy and drama that the filmmakers are attempting.

Otherwise, the film veers either into the overly serious or the unduly sentimental. Predictably, it's not only Howard that needs help but Whit, Claire and Simon have their own personal issues to deal with: Whit is trying to reconnect with his daughter, Claire is a workaholic who finds it may be too late to start a family, and Simon has a cough that all but signals imminent death. There's also grief counselor Madeleine (Naomie Harris) who, out of the many spouting empty platitudes, has the honour of explaining the film's title: out of moments of despair arise resulting gestures of kindness called "collateral beauty."

One could do far worse than Collateral Beauty, which is a watchable affair. Yet it keeps shooting itself in the foot by adding one cloying moment after another. The ending or, more precisely, endings are the worst offenders, believing themselves twists when they only serve to further how prettily and neatly packaged Collateral Beauty insists on being.

Collateral Beauty

Directed by: David Frankel

Written by: Allan Loeb

Starring: Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris, Kate Winslet, Jacob Latimore, Ann Dowd