Becoming an anticipated fan of this film since it’s debut trailer released in early September. I was beyond excited for this psychological adventure into the mind and benefits of how two opposing emotions can create a positive influence in your life. It’s not the end when things seem dark.
The movie the trailer told us about was a film starring Will Smith, whose daughter died and since then he has gone into a life full of grief. His character writes letters to Love, Time, and Death. He is visited by these spirits and they try and talk some sense into him. Like a classic Christmas Carol tale, one that I was in love with.
The movie that played on the screen, however, was something different. It was a movie that starred Edward Norton whose best friend, Will Smith, goes through a deep depression after his daughter died. Edward Norton’s character along with Micheal Pena and Kate Winslet work together to “try” to help their friend Will has he goes through this tough time. So what they actually do is find these actors to play the role of Love, Time, and Death. Edward films these interactions with Will and the Actors and edits the actors out and they expose these videos to the head office. They do this all to FOOL their CEO into believing that Will Smiths character is medically insane which would make him not suitable for making decisions for their business, saving Edward Norton and co’s job for the time being. We have no idea what kind of guy Will Smith’s character was before his daughter’s death, we see him in the first 5 minutes of the movie and he’s super happy and excited then boom the movie cuts ahead to a miserable man who we just met.
During this whole movie of people fooling Will’s character into believing that he is losing it, by faking interactions with people it begins to make things hard to believe from here on out. Because later this random girl who we have no previous knowledge of approaches Will and has these home videos of him and on first viewing I just assumed Edwards gang planted this here to further his craziness to bring him back. But it turns out it was his wife. I can go one forever about other tiny bits of things the movie did wrong, but that is the bulk of it.
In conclusion, The movie tries very hard to hide information and it takes these unconventional routes to get make sure we do not find anything out. Will insanely slow pacing issues that don’t help the film, it hard to give this a second watch. But bashing aside, as a person who loves to see movies to have some sort of heart string tugged at, I was satisfied. The writing was beyond amazing, it was beautiful. “I’m a gift, and you’re wasting it!” – Time. “Nothing is quite dead unless you look at it right” – Death. Like these are ground breaking lines that people going through the same depression can feel to0. It tackles a tough subject, I want to see more movies that have the balls this one did to take on such a huge topic. If you have not seen it yet, go see it because no matter what the reviews say about it, good or bad. This movie will affect you in some shape or form, it teaches a lesson that this world needs.
The power of collateral beauty. 7.5/10
Written by: Glenn
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