- Jan 6, 2015
- 14,130
- 26,491
Collateral Beauty (2016)
This has some pretty good actors (I do love Ed Norton, and the ladies were easy on the eyes). Premise is Will Smith was a vibrant leader who helped create an advertising group in NYC, very successful with a tight group of friends that helped him grow it. We find him 2y after his daughter (age 6) died of cancer and he's never recovered. He shows up to the office, but works with dominoes and doesn't do any real work anymore to the point where the firm is about to lose major clients, so his 'friends' seek to get him deemed unfit to vote his shares in selling the company to new buyers. Will had written three letters, one each to Time, Death, and Love full of anger and accusation over his daughter's death. The 'friends' (they are, they just have to act against him for their own reasons), enlist 3 actors to confront him, representing Time, Death, and Love which they hope to use to either snap him out of it or further prove he is unfit for controlling his shares. There are a few layers to this film which half will pick up on and see coming - I don't wish to spoil them, but I will say they were well planned and executed, tying the actors and the 'friends' to Will's character and each other. There's a fourth role, a woman running a grief recovery for parents who lost kids, who also gets a wrinkle in the story but it is very appropriate whether you see it coming or not. All in all, consider it 'not a comedy', but most certainly a semi-heavy film to help you deal with death of a child or at least see how one man did. The film itself is top quality, good writing, lighting, sets, dialogue, acting, etc. and it wraps up with a nice semi-twist at the end (open for your interpretation) that also fits well. 8/10
This has some pretty good actors (I do love Ed Norton, and the ladies were easy on the eyes). Premise is Will Smith was a vibrant leader who helped create an advertising group in NYC, very successful with a tight group of friends that helped him grow it. We find him 2y after his daughter (age 6) died of cancer and he's never recovered. He shows up to the office, but works with dominoes and doesn't do any real work anymore to the point where the firm is about to lose major clients, so his 'friends' seek to get him deemed unfit to vote his shares in selling the company to new buyers. Will had written three letters, one each to Time, Death, and Love full of anger and accusation over his daughter's death. The 'friends' (they are, they just have to act against him for their own reasons), enlist 3 actors to confront him, representing Time, Death, and Love which they hope to use to either snap him out of it or further prove he is unfit for controlling his shares. There are a few layers to this film which half will pick up on and see coming - I don't wish to spoil them, but I will say they were well planned and executed, tying the actors and the 'friends' to Will's character and each other. There's a fourth role, a woman running a grief recovery for parents who lost kids, who also gets a wrinkle in the story but it is very appropriate whether you see it coming or not. All in all, consider it 'not a comedy', but most certainly a semi-heavy film to help you deal with death of a child or at least see how one man did. The film itself is top quality, good writing, lighting, sets, dialogue, acting, etc. and it wraps up with a nice semi-twist at the end (open for your interpretation) that also fits well. 8/10