Collateral Beauty

Year: 2016
Genre: Drama
Directed: David Frankel
Stars: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, Jacob Latimore, Naomie Harris, Kylie Rogers, Liza Colon-Zayas, Ann Dowd, Alyssa Cheatham
Production:

I read somewhere that 2016, in addition to having a leap day also included a leap second that the powers that be added unceremoniously to New Year Eve. While the reasons for this are scientifically understandable, the goofy Facebook click-bait that followed the announcement only reinforced the idea that the year was simply not going to end. Watching Collateral Beauty in 2017 is like reliving that extra second of 2016 over and over again over an hour and thirty seven minutes. Much like this past year, I looked on Collateral Beauty with cautious optimism - I then quickly graduated to anger, migrated towards the "well s**t" feeling of detachment you get when everything goes off the rails, before finally simpering in my seat praying for the sweet release of death.

Please end movie...

Will Smith plays a cardboard cutout named Howard whose advertising agency's mantra is based on humanity's relationship to time, love and death (also Dominos). Since the death of his six-year-old daughter however, Howard's become virtually catatonic botching business relationships and new contracts with his constant moping. His business associates Whit (Norton), Claire (Winslet) and Simon (Pena) worry Howard's mental state will ruin the company. Howard is seems worries about nothing anymore.

I am envy. I hate everyone!

At some point in this train wreck, Howard comes to believe he is having conversations with the concepts of Death (Mirren), Time (Latimore) and Love (Knightley). I will try not to drop any serious spoilers, lest to say Collateral Beauty is not as advertised and the results are about as contrived as a hipsters beard and as morally dubious as enjoying a Nazi romance story. Make no mistake, this movie is such an unholy mess of maligned story elements, faux sentimentality and outdated influences that it did cross my mind that I was living in a Twilight Zone (1959-1964) episode; or at the very least living in a middle school playwright's first draft of his "edgy," first student led play.

Coincidentally my reaction to watching this movie.

The inexcusably bad quality of this film is downright absurd considering the talent involved. On their own the fiery instincts of Edward Norton, the marshaled power of Kate Winslet or failing that the stateliness of Helen Mirren should have been enough to save this movie. But much like faded, badly preserved paintings adorning the walls of a Best Western, the actors all just hang there lifeless. Will Smith, our interminably absent lead has surpassed his work in Seven Pounds (2008) to turn in the most painfully artificial character he's ever played. His depictions of a grief stricken father are so insultingly sweeping and tertiary that I honestly believe in preparation for the role he stared at a sad clown painting until he got a migraine.

Of course it's not his fault, nor the fault of any of the actors on screen. Much like the Dominos that Howard patiently stacks in his pristine glass office, Collateral Beauty is built on a lousy foundation. I think the film is trying to update the saccharin chastity of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) for modern audiences. But if that's the case, none of that film's clarity of mind survived the transfer. Nor its ability to coax real emotions which this movie fumbles to the point of unintentional hilarity.

Got your collateral beauty right here movie!

Collateral Beauty is like watching the cheery, life-affirming moral of "A Christmas Carol" being hit by an Uber. The implications of this movie are so thoroughly twisted, the joints of the story painfully exposed and the talent involved have been reduced to nothing more than grease stains. 2016 is over - as of this review it's been over for seven days. But the residue of such a painful year still lives on in the recess of this films putrid, noxious bowels. I guess before it died 2016 really did s**t itself.

Final Grade: F