by Chris Feil
When the aliens discover Earth, long after the ice caps have melted, I hope we leave a time capsule that includes Collateral Beauty to explain ourselves. No seriously: there's something to the film's off-handed cruelty and blasé emotional platitudes that shows how dunderheaded we humans can be. However this is only one of the film's many accidents, coming from its lack of self-awareness rather than its content. Collateral Beauty thinks itself holistic and clever, but its actually deeply, fundamentally stupid.
Which is not to say you should avoid it. Collateral Beauty isn't the punishing misfire you will find elsewhere at the multiplex like Nocturnal Animals, it's much more of a fascinating failure. Maybe "so bad they're good" movies might not be your thing, but this one's defiance of logic makes it unmissable.
From its trailers, you likely have a very different idea of the film than what it actually is, which in turn only makes the film stranger for how it upends your expectations. For starters the embodiments of Death (Helen Mirren), Love (Keira Knightley), and Time (Jacob Latimore) aren't from the spirit realm at all. They're actually actors hired to stalk and surprise a grieving father (Will Smith) so that his colleague friends (Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, and Michael Peña) can dismantle him from his own company. Most of the film isn't actually greeting card moroseness, instead it functions largely as the kind of dopey comedy that finds such deception hilarious. (Collateral Beauty is directed by David Frankel, who has with this and The Devil Wears Prada cornered the market on movies featuring garbage friends.)
If that sounds spoilery or over complex, keep in mind this is revealed well within the film's first twenty minutes.
Eventually, the maudlin does come and its as extra gloopy and overwrought as you expect. The best thing the film has going for it is its large cast that rolls with every sharp turn in tone and absurdity. Similarly, you kind of have to admire that the film does stick to its guns water pistols - at least it commits to concept, no matter how clunky or fatal its swan dive. Some genuine feeling could have done a lot of good, but instead the emotions are as labored and manufactured as the script's obviousness allows.
It's not simply that the film is bad - in my estimation, not even the worst of the year - but it is the type of bad that makes you wonder how it even exists. A lot of smart minds went into making a very daffy picture that includes with two wonky tagged-on twists and the most hilarious repeated use of its title. You can feel the longer version that exists on the cutting room floor from all its manic tangents. But Collateral Beauty remains an inexplicable delight, even if for all the wrong reasons.
Grade: D