FILM REVIEW
'Collateral Beauty'
1.5 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: PG-13 for thematic elements and brief strong language
Cast: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena
Director: David Frankel
Run time: 97 minutes
Howard, Will Smith's character in "Collateral Beauty," is a marketing genius. An ad wizard, you might say. "What is your why?" is the empty pseudo-profundity he uses as a point of motivation for the employees at his advertising firm. "What is your why." It might as well be "How is your when," or "Why is your who" or "when is your where." They all make the same amount of sense, and specifically, not much of it beyond some ill-defined new-age tripe, cynically concocted to relieve the gullible of the burden of their money. (Which is the point of advertising, right?)
"What is your why." A more apt question would be, "Why am I watching this?", and your answer might be, because the film stars Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley, an awesome assemblage of talent worthy of a better script. Specifically, a script that doesn't resemble an assortment of greeting cards haphazardly stapled together - sympathy, graduation, anniversary, get well soon, I'm sorry, miss you, just because, Jesus is here for you always, happy Arbor Day from your cat. "What is your why" should be a new category of card, for when you want to say something that means nothing, but don't know quite what to say or how to say it.
"Collateral Beauty" intends to be a portrait of grief. Howard is three years deep into crippling depression, following the death of his six-year-old daughter. And here, it's important to point out, just because a story depicts a man in the wake of an all-too-plausible tragedy, doesn't automatically make it sincere, truthful or, in this case, an approximation of real, recognizable human behavior. Smith's inert performance suggests as much.
Howard spends his days not working, but filling his ultramodern office with elaborate structures of multi-colored dominoes. (Say it with me: Sssssssssssssssymbolism!) He finishes one massive architecture, flicks the first domino, then walks out like an action hero who just blew up the building behind him. He doesn't even give himself the satisfaction of seeing it fall. He's been this way for six months, his co-workers whisper to each other in expository dialogue, even though they should all know he's been this way for six months, since they've all been there watching it for six months. But we weren't, so thank you, Howard's co-workers, for telling us this.
Anyway, he fiddles with his dominoes and furrows his brow, then rides his bike into oncoming traffic to hang out at a dog park even though he doesn't have a dog, and then home to a sparse and lonely apartment furnished with no phone or TV, only a desk and a light bulb. These are telltale signs of Hollywood Depression, an affliction suffered by flimsy characters in crap movies.
One lonely night at his desk and under his light bulb, Howard writes letters to Death, Time and Love, which also happen to be the key elements of his "What is your why" philosophy of persuading people to buy things. What kind of things? Shoes or dental picks or impotence medication? I don't know. These are details, and the film isn't big on details, just broadnesses. Anyway, he drops the letters in the corner mailbox and goes about his day, moping and muttering and furrowing.
This action is witnessed by a private investigator, who takes a photo of the mailbox, gets a key made to open the mailbox, and willfully commits a federal crime by opening the mailbox and removing the letters, all before the mailbox can be emptied by a postal worker. We don't see all this happen, but it's implied, and if this seems logistically implausible, well, I haven't gotten to the film's core concept yet, which is so convoluted, it makes a morass look methodical, a perplexity look precise, a labyrinth look like straight lines.
The private investigator has been hired by Howard's partners, Whit (Norton), Claire (Winslet) and Simon (Pena). The agency is in trouble, losing major clients because of Howard's mental absence. Their attempts to communicate with him are unsuccessful, so they decide he needs to sell his share of the company in order to salvage it. When they see the letters, they decide to pay three actors $20,000 each to play Love (Knightley), Death (Mirren) and Time (Jacob Latimore); they'll each confront Howard on the street while the P.I. covertly films the conversation. Then, Whit, Claire and Simon will take the footage, digitally remove the actors so it looks like he's conversing with empty sidewalk, and present it to lawyers, who will deem Howard loopy as a loon, and render his stake in the company null.
I pause to let this sink in. If this seems brutal, that's because it is. Would you believe that Whit, Claire and Simon are Howard's friends, who love him? No? Well, tough. Because "Collateral Beauty" will enforce this logical implausibility, alongside the logistical implausibility of the aforementioned scheme. We really shouldn't be thinking about the staging of such an elaborate deception, because the poor guy lost his kid and is heartbroken, but here we are, worrying about the angle at which the P.I. is holding her iPhone. The premise body-checks the movie's well-meaning intentions right out of the hockey rink, across 4th Street, into the river and downstream into the ocean, where it drowns, then is eaten by a school of barracudas.
There's more - Whit, Claire and Simon all have their own problems, with love, time and death, respectively, and conveniently. So they learn big life lessons, too. Are you believing this yet? I don't believe it, and I sat through it, patiently at first, then with some intensified squirming, then while stifling laughter. And now, I feel like an idiot merely describing it.
The film appears to be what happens when a person attends the first three Psych 101 lectures, then drops the course to write a screenplay. It's thin, schmaltzy and clueless. When Death first approaches him and introduces herself, Howard says, "Nope," inadvertently reviewing his own movie. "I've heard all of your platitudes!" he says later, inadvertently reviewing his own movie. "It's all a bunch of intellectual bull (expletive)!" is another of his lines in which he, yes, inadvertently reviews his own movie.
It's also a bunch of emotional bull (expletive), a phony, contrived, fraudulent, quasi-profound, overly maudlin bucket of holiday-season treacle-slop engineered to yank tears without mercy. It fails miserably. Director David Frankel and screenwriter Allan Loeb misfire so frequently, the movie is like the dud pile at the fireworks factory, saving its biggest fizzles for the final act, which is rife with manipulative, nonsensical twists and enough triteness to cripple 100 nihilists from 100 paces. "Collateral beauty," uncapitalized, is also a nothingness, a philosophical void at film's core, a catchphrase deployed by characters with bogus sagaciousness, because it has no concept to prop it up. What is it, really, besides a great movie title? I haven't a clue. I guess it's the what that is the movie's why.