Collateral Beauty

If you gathered Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, and Keira Knightley in a room today, you’d assume you were looking at the guest list for a lifetime achievement gala or a high-stakes heist flick. Instead, back in 2016, we got Collateral Beauty, a film that feels like a fever dream conjured by a Hallmark executive who accidentally ingested a philosophy textbook. It is a movie that attempts to swing for the emotional fences with such frantic intensity that it occasionally trips over its own shoelaces and face-plants into the dugout.

I watched this film on a Tuesday evening while eating a bowl of cereal that had gone slightly soggy because I was too busy squinting at the screen, trying to figure out if what I was seeing was actually happening. It’s a strange beast of a drama—part "A Christmas Carol," part corporate espionage thriller, and part existential weepie.

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The premise is, frankly, bananas. Will Smith plays Howard, a once-charismatic advertising executive who has checked out of life following the tragic death of his young daughter. He spends his days at the office building elaborate, massive domino structures just to knock them down—a metaphor so heavy it practically cracks the floorboards. To cope, he starts mailing angry letters to abstract concepts: Love, Time, and Death.

Now, most friends would stage an intervention or buy him a gift card for therapy. But Howard’s business partners—played by Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña—have a different plan. Because Howard is tanking the company’s value and refuses to sell, they hire a trio of struggling stage actors to manifest as the three entities Howard wrote to. The plot is essentially a corporate hit job disguised as a spiritual awakening. They aren't just trying to help him; they’re trying to gaslight him into appearing mentally incompetent so they can take control of the firm. It is a level of "jerk behavior" that is almost impressive in its audacity.

Heavyweight Talent vs. Lightweight Logic

Despite the baffling ethics of the characters, the cast is doing work. Will Smith is in full "Pursuit of Happyness" mode here, eyes perpetually rimmed with red, radiating a grief so loud it drowns out the New York City background noise. It’s a raw, vulnerable performance that almost makes you forget he’s being tricked by his best friends.

Then there’s Helen Mirren as Brigitte (who plays "Death"). She is clearly having the most fun, gliding through scenes with a mischievous twinkle that suggests she knows exactly how ridiculous the screenplay is. Keira Knightley (Love) and Jacob Latimore (Time) round out the trio of "apparitions," and their interactions with the grieving Howard provide the film’s most poignant—if legally questionable—moments. David Frankel, who directed the sharp The Devil Wears Prada, treats the material with a glossy, prestige-sheen that makes the whole thing feel like an Oscar contender, even when the logic is crumbling faster than Howard’s dominoes.

The film belongs to that specific 2010s era of "high-concept prestige," where studios were still betting big on original, star-driven dramas before the mid-budget movie mostly migrated to streaming services like Netflix or Apple TV+. In today’s landscape, this would likely be a limited series, but in 2016, it was a theatrical event meant to capture the holiday "weepie" market.

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The journey of Collateral Beauty to the screen was almost as dramatic as the film itself. It’s one of those projects that acted like a magnet for A-list talent, even as the creative leads shifted.

The Lead Swaps: Long before Will Smith signed on, the role of Howard was intended for Hugh Jackman. When he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with Logan, Johnny Depp was briefly in talks before Smith eventually stepped in. The Director Shuffle: Alfonso Cuarón was originally approached to direct. Imagine the long-take, cinematic wizardry of Children of Men applied to a story about actors pretending to be Time and Death in a Midtown office building! Domino Duty: Those massive domino setups Howard builds weren't all CGI. Professional domino artists were brought in to create the structures, though Will Smith did learn how to set some of them up himself to ensure the physical acting felt authentic. The Title's Meaning: The phrase "Collateral Beauty" was something screenwriter Allan Loeb came up with to describe the idea of finding moments of grace following a tragedy (the inverse of "collateral damage"). It’s a term that has since sparked endless debate among fans and critics about whether it’s profound or just gibberish. * A "Cult" of Criticism: Upon release, the film was savaged by critics, with some calling it the worst movie of the year. However, it has developed a fascinating "how-did-this-get-made" cult following. People watch it now specifically to marvel at the star power involved in such a bizarrely plotted story.

Ultimately, Collateral Beauty is a movie that asks you to ignore your common sense in exchange for a good cry. If you can move past the fact that the protagonists are essentially villains in a different genre, there is a warmth to the New York winter setting and the score by Theodore Shapiro. It’s a fascinating relic of a time when we still expected our movie stars to sell us big, messy, philosophical ideas on the big screen. It’s not "good" in a traditional sense, but as a curiosity of contemporary cinema, it’s unforgettable.

You might find yourself rolling your eyes at the twist ending, but you'll probably still reach for a tissue during the final act. It’s a glossy, star-studded mess that proves even a cast full of Oscar winners can’t always save a script that thinks it's much smarter than it actually is. It’s worth a watch if only to see Helen Mirren pretend to be the Grim Reaper while wearing a very stylish coat.