Wow. The reviews of this are ridiculous. I'm so tired of the armchair "critics" out there today, and the nonsense they whine about. Sure, there's nothing all that noteworthy here, but it's a pretty good weepy with some good performances. If you're in that kind of mood or dig these actors give it a go.
unexpected ending... this movie did not allow me to blink
will smith always amazing
I saw the trailer and was intrigued.
I was expecting before watching it that it was gonna actually be Death, Time and Love coming to Howard, and I was a bit sad when I saw that they were just actors. But how thrilled was I towards the end, that plot twist I just couldn't have seen coming!
I was going along with them just being actors, and then at the end, we see Death herself at the hospital with Madeline (as we learn at the end, she is Howards wife and the mother of his dead daughter). Revelation! And when Howard and Madeline turn around at the end, we see that Howard is the only one who sees the three. Then we have to remember what Death said about the rules: "We have the power to be seen by whomever we want, whenever we want". Madeline needed to see Death at the hospital that day, but she didn't need to see her again or the other two. Howard still saw them all, however at the end when the camera turns we see that they're gone. Maybe Howard doesn't need them anymore... or might it be us, the viewers, who can't see them anymore? We've gained what we can gain from watching the movie and now they're not visible to us? I might take it a bit far, but my first time watching this was just amazing!
A little sidenote, when thinking about why the "actors" wanted to money, or didn't want it. First of all yeah, they might have done it so to play the role of the starving actors, but not just that. We can use our resources, money, to save time, to get more time - we spend money so we don't have to wait. With death I'm not 100 % sure, but my take on it is that we fear death so we spend money to avoid it. In a straight forward way by paying for vaccines, medications, psychologists. But also think back to when people would pay to get a "ticket to heaven", we are scared and think money is the solution. And then there's love, and she didn't originally want to do this, but when she hears that she can help someone, she's in it. She's only in it when it's about the love. Most people will probably say that you can buy a lot in this world, but you can't buy real love. Don't you just love that.
I honestly am gonna watch this again in the near future with someone I care for, cause it made a huge impact on me and I'm sure it could on other people in my life as well. Will Smith, or well all of the actors, I really thought they did a great job. Recommending!
Great acting talent, interesting premise skillfully executed (things are not as they seem), ethereal soundtrack, thoughtful reflection on the big issues of life. Impeccable American accents by the Brits. Naomi Harris won a Hollywood Breakthrough Award for her performance, and if you compare this to her role in Moonlight or Spectre, you appreciate the chameleon talent she is - I expect we will see much more of her. Every actor deserves mention for their fine work in this. I give this movie an 8 (great) out of 10.
wipes a tear and slow clap
im proud of will smith he is a good actor. great cast and amazing story. truman show effect haha
Watch it the week of it release w/ kaoutar
Tear jerker made me reflect on my life which I don't normally look back at the past. I keep always turn around to keep my future ahead of me. So it hit home. Love Will Smith is there anything he can't do.
Time will show that Love will be the Death of us all.
Interesting ending, didn't saw that coming. Good acting, original plot, good drama to watch with family. Oscar bait, but a good Oscar bait.
Remember when everybody said that "Gods of Egypt" and "Independence Day: Resurgence" are the worst movies of 2016. Well, along comes this turd.
When I saw the trailer for "Collateral Beauty", I thought it's going to be a modern day "A Christmas Carol". I mean, it looked like it could be an emotional movie, despite looking Oscar bait. It's not until I saw the movie and the actual plot.
Here the real plot: A successful New York advertising (Will Smith) executive suffers a great tragedy, he retreats from life. He goes to work and builds elaborate Domino sets then watches them collapse while he refuses to communicate with other people. His co-workers react to this by hiring actors to pretend to be Death, Love and Time so they can film him talking to them then editing them out the video so it looks like he's mentally unstable to be a shareholder.
Yes, that's the actual plot to the movie and it's awful. No wonder the trailer false advert this, because who would want to see this.
How the hell did this get made? And why are there so many big name actors involved? I think this and "Nine Lives" are the biggest WTF movies of 2016. I just can't get my head around this. These Oscar winners & nominees agreed to be in this?
"Collateral Beauty" isn't just the worse movie of 2016, but of the 21st century. What a cruel, heartless, boring, Oscar bait trash of a film. It's the worse kind of Oscar bait, as it ticks all the boxes for the purpose of earning nominations for Academy Award.
What's worse is that title of the movie "Collateral Beauty" is literally said six times in the movie, but yet, I have no idea what it's suppose to mean. And frankly, I don't give a damn.
This is once again another Will Smith Oscar bait movie. There was "Seven Pounds", "Concussion", and now "Collateral Beauty". If I have to pick this or "Suicide Squad", for his worse movie yet, this easily takes the cake. Smith himself isn't really the leading man, but neither supporting.
At least the rest of the actors are actually trying, as the performance in this are not bad. But that's the only "good" thing I can say about this.
Overall rating: This movie can go fuck itself.
Sorry, this film did nothing for me. I'm all for fantasy blending into reality, but this film failed to pull it off. The cast were good, and the intentions were pure... but it was too manipulative, and the story was weak.
Let me just take you through the absolute shitshow that is Collateral Beauty. There is no simple way to describe the plot, since it is one of the most contrived, poorly thought-out ideas in cinema history.
Will Smith plays the charming, inspirational head of a New York advertising firm. This lasts about five minutes until we fast forward a few years to find Smith’s character a husk of his former self following the death of his daughter. As part of his grieving process he writes letters to the abstract concepts of time, love and death.
His depression causes concern at a board level in the company, and his colleagues (Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, Michael Peña) attempt to set up a sale. However, Smith doesn’t want to sell his shares. So, his colleagues and, I should add, best friends, hire actors to pretend like they actually got the letters he wrote.
They want to trick him into thinking he is talking to time, love and death then they hire a PI to record him talking like an insane person; all in order to force the sale of the company. The film-makers seem to think this is cute and fun but ignore the fact that it’s FUCKING MENTAL.
Frankel tries to play what is a sick, twisted plot worthy of a psychological thriller off as a romantic Christmas comedy. It’s weird, tone deaf, risible nonsense.
benoliver999.com/film/2017/04/21/collateralbeauty/
A touching, yet somewhat confusing character drama, Collateral Beauty is a compelling film about love and reconciliation. To save their firm from collapsing three managers collaborate to hire a group of actors to play Death, Time, and Love, and confront their dysfunctional CEO who is grief stricken from the death of his daughter and has written to them out of desperation. Starring Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, and Keira Knightley, the film features an incredibly strong cast; however their performances are pretty middling. And there are a few plot holes and reveals that don’t quite make sense. Still, the story takes some interesting turns and plays against conventional stereotypes. While it's not as clever as it thinks it is, Collateral Beauty is an entertaining and heartfelt film.
On the surface, I can understand the hate that is centered around this film - it had false and misleading advertising, and a bit of plot holes that pop up when you think about things just a little bit, but then you dig deeper.
People wanted this to be a holiday film with Christmas magic similar to A Christmas Carol with three spirits visiting the cranky old man to make him see the light, but that isn't what Will Smith is all about. He made this real and visceral while still maintaining a fresh take on the real magic that actually affects us every day - feelings. There are also plenty of really interesting parallels that happen in the movie that you might have to watch a couple of times to notice, but when you see them, the movie only becomes that more effective in what it's truly going for.
Does this film deserve hatred? Not at all. It has real issues that you shouldn't ignore, which does negatively affect the overall score, but as a whole, I do consider this flick solid.
I'm quite conflicted with this movie I thought parts of it were great and really moved me and there's other parts that straight made no sense.
Let's start with the good:
-Great performances by everyone although a mostly silent Will Smith in kind of a wasted Will Smith.
-The parallel they were building with each of the actors's "alter egos" with Whit, Claire and Simon's personal issues were brilliant in my opinion. (see the bad part for the continuation)
-Very well shot, the editing style sold me the mood.
The Bad:
-Really fucking predictable.
-The whole "she turned out to be his wife" subplot makes no sense. Did he forget her after the divorce to the point they were strangers again (or at least her to him)? Was he aware the whole time? Maybe I missed something there.
-As brilliant as the parallel was, in my opinion is ruined by eventually revealing the "actors" were actually the entities they were "playing" which for me makes the whole movie lose its weigh by creating unnecessary questions in return like: did the entities set themselves up to be approached to play the fake entities to help Howard? If they were actually invisible entities why was no one else looking at the other 3 weird? The PI was in on the whole thing... could she see them too? Honestly it would have been way more powerful to not make them the actual entities since that would have shown that normal humans can help each other out of holes and the parallel would have hit harder.
-The fact that the PI was recording vertical then when they're playing the videos back to Howard they're somehow 16:9 is almost criminal (that's nitpicking though).
It's not a bad film but the lack of attention to detail and its predictability bothered me... 7/10
this movie is really beautiful, although it's not my type of genre it really surprised me and even got me some tears
I really love this movie, for some reason it always hits the sweet emotional spot for me. The soundtrack is beautiful, Will Smith is great, those 97 minutes went by very fast. Can't believe it's been 5 years since I last saw this.
The final few scenes were the first time I believed Will Smith's performance in this movie.
Watch it. You won’t regret it. ‘Tis short, sweet, and beautiful!
I like the film but...
Me gusto la pelicula pero me falla como se cuenta la historia.
#B3LL3Z40C5LT4C
Remember when everybody said that "Gods of Egypt" and "Independence Day: Resurgence" are the worst movies of 2016. Well, along comes this turd.
When I saw the trailer for "Collateral Beauty", I thought it's going to be a modern day "A Christmas Carol". I mean, it looked like it could be an emotional movie, despite looking Oscar bait. It's not until I saw the movie and the actual plot.
Here the real plot: A successful New York advertising (Will Smith) executive suffers a great tragedy, he retreats from life. He goes to work and builds elaborate Domino sets then watches them collapse while he refuses to communicate with other people. His co-workers react to this by hiring actors to pretend to be Death, Love and Time so they can film him talking to them then editing them out the video so it looks like he's mentally unstable to be a shareholder.
Yes, that's the actual plot to the movie and it's awful. No wonder the trailer false advert this, because who would want to see this.
How the hell did this get made? And why are there so many big name actors involved? I think this and "Nine Lives" are the biggest WTF movies of 2016. I just can't get my head around this. These Oscar winners & nominees agreed to be in this?
"Collateral Beauty" isn't just the worse movie of 2016, but of the 21st century. What a cruel, heartless, boring, Oscar bait trash of a film. It's the worse kind of Oscar bait, as it ticks all the boxes for the purpose of earning nominations for Academy Award.
What's worse is that title of the movie "Collateral Beauty" is literally said six times in the movie, but yet, I have no idea what it's suppose to mean. And frankly, I don't give a damn.
This is once again another Will Smith Oscar bait movie. There was "Seven Pounds", "Concussion", and now "Collateral Beauty". If I have to pick this or "Suicide Squad", for his worse movie yet, this easily takes the cake. Smith himself isn't really the leading man, but neither supporting.
At least the rest of the actors are actually trying, as the performance in this are not bad. But that's the only "good" thing I can say about this.
Overall rating: This movie can go fuck itself.
The concept of collateral beauty in the wake of loss is thought provoking. The loss of people that were dear causes one to feel their presence, perhaps in an effort to keep them near ... perhaps their effort to not be forgotten ... I don't know. But either way we are promoted to see a world in a perspective that is different then is typical. Could this be collateral beauty? The movie doesn't really give an answer.
Very good acting, nice plot twist at the ending. Magnificent movie in it’s entirety. 8/10
I chose this movie for Christmas Eve, without having any idea about its plot. Getting into a film without any prior knowledge or expectations probably really is the greatest favor you can do to any movie. It certainly worked for me and "Collateral Beauty", considering some other reviews.
As someone who saw the trailers for this but only just got around to seeing it, I'm really glad no one spoiled it for me. The trailers made it seem like one thing was happening, but then the first act flips that assumption on its head and you do start guessing whether or not they are genuinely what they say they are.
As for the "twisted" nature of what Howard's (Smith) friends do, let's not forget it came from a sound idea that was working for Norton's character's relationship with his mother. If it worked for her, why would it not work for Howard? And it did actually help him in the long run.
As for the ending, I only caught on when he arrived on the doorstep, so I only saw it coming about two minutes before the twist was revealed.
A great cast, all providing great performances, but it's one of those films that doesn't quite add up to the sum of its parts for some reason and it's not easy to pin down exactly what. At least, that's how it felt to me. Definitely worth a watch, anyway, especially if you're a fan of one or more of the actors involved.
So finally we got a good movie with an original script and not "based on a real story" or "inspired by real events.
I´ll admit the foundation of the story is twisted and an awful thing to do to anybody but in the end you´ll realise that Death, Time and Love came to the right people and ultimately they all found relief.
Oh, I cried. It was beautiful and sad.
Thought it was an incredible example of emotional acting. Terrific cast and a very unexpected ending. Wow.
Well i was expecting a different movie from the trailer, it delivered something different and at the end you witness something even more different. Confused in a good way. Sad movie.
The biggest piece of Oscar bait released in 2016. Collateral Beauty is a ridiculous movie that ruins the performances from a very good cast. Will Smith, Helen Mirren and Noamie Harris are great but the script focuses on way too many characters and doesn't devote enough time to any of them. Then it tries to draw emotions without earning any of it.
This is really not my type of movie, but damn I loved it and it got me crying
Seemed a bit low budget, but a good story.
Rated as one of the worst movies of 2016!
Shout by CinemanicBonkersBlockedParent2017-03-12T00:19:19Z
Worth your time, comes off with lots of love, a film to watch before death. Powerful. Say's a lot. Makes you think. I didn't expected the ending. Beautiful. Great performance from all. Strong film. A story that I'm sure will make you shed a tear or two. It it felt like a xmas carol with a twist.