By Emilio Frenk
Director: David Frankel
Cast: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris, Jacob Latimore, Ann Dowd, Keira Knightley, Kate Winslet and Helen Mirren.
Rating: Poor.
David Frankel, director of movies like “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Marley and Me” comes with “Collateral Beauty” and despite of having a cast with A list actors it was not good enough and the results were very poor.
The movie centers on Howard Inlet (Will Smith) a succesful advertising executive who suffers a major tragedy due to the death of her young daughter.
Not only Howard’s life has changed, but he hates life and begins to suffer from clynical depression. This behavior begins to worry his business partners Whit Yardsham (Edward Norton), Claire Wilson (Kate Winslet) and Simon Scott (Michael Peña).
The trio eventually will discover that Howard writes letters to things like Death, Love and Time; thanks to this discovery the trio makes, they have the idea of hiring struggling theater actors comformed by Aimee (Keira Knightley), Raffi (Jacob Latimore) and Brigitte (Helen Mirren); the three will masquerade as Love, Time and Death to confront Howard and bring him back to reality before his career is jeopardized and the future of his business partners and the company.
The main problem of “Collateral Beauty” beside the title of the film was the screenplay and the direction.
The movie became to predictable from the moment it started until the end and David Frankel didn´t take enough chances on getting the best out of his cast which is conformed by both Academy Award Nominees and Winners.
The screenplay written by Alan Loeb who wrote movies like “The Switch” and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” became to obvious and I didn´t buy the transitions of time that took place during the movie.
The movie had an interesting premise but it was not well written and directed and the result speaks for itself.
I have an enoumous respect to the cast of this movie, specially to Will Smith and Edward Norton who is one of the most talented actors in this industry. The problem is on the script which led to a bad direction.
David Frankel directed back in 2008 “Marley and Me”, which not only is funny but at the same time is a sad movie, but it worked. He is a director that he knows how to direct a movie like this and of course it led to poor choices in the direction.
The movie has a very slowed paced but it has no meaning for that. I don´t mind slow paced movies as long as it have a good reason for that. Here despite of the running time of the film I felt it gave too much information which led to boredom.
This movie had the potential to deliver the goods due to the cast the movie and theme since most of this type of movies are shot in New York City during Christmas Eve, which has become a very common thing.
With that being said, “Collateral Beauty” is a major dissapointment and I cannot recommend it.