Collateral Beauty leaves mouths wide open with popcorn stuck to tongues throughout the duration of the film. Viewers exit the theater adamant for the long haul through the occasional flat lands of life-- as one normally does at the end of deeply insightful Will Smith films. The actor himself is the epitome of grief's reign over our lives as he transforms from animate father and friend to desolate stranger. It's a plot line not terribly foreign to any Will Smith fan: Father's knuckles bleed as he pounds into the jaw of life; yet, this happy ending may not inherit a sound resolution in the mind of an analytical. Smith places a Rubix cube in our hands, solved, but the puzzle seems far from pieced together; and as the credits roll, Love, Time and Death are finally given faces in the backs of our minds.
Love
Aside from the predictability of who would play whom, Keira Knightley's script was beyond the audience's prognosis. An agonized Howard (Smith) doesn't take Love seriously upon initial meeting, and Knightley's character doesn't have much ground to stand on in the first place. There isn't enough for the viewer to ponder, at first, because said interaction was so brief. Characters and plots evolve, and in no time it's clear that Knightley isn't reviving Love in Howard alone. Meeting number two puts the greatest strain on our concept of Love as the actress unleashes a reality that surpassed us for generations; Pain is not an evil accomplice to Love, rather Pain is Love. Hence their convenient visits one after the other. Often times we scorn Love, we lose faith in it because we believe it causes us such emotional pain. Perhaps Love is our only companion through the good and the bad; Love converts to Pain so we may see the parts of ourselves we never want to associate with again. It's not a friendly reminder, but out of the ash the Phoenix will rise.
Time
Howard's desecration of time not only left room for comedic relief in actor Jacob Latimore's domain, but it also nestled a familiar feeling in the hearts of the audience. Of all the enemies and demons we face daily, time is our most common denominator; so, why haven't we found a way to cooperate with time rather than try and outrun it? It's evident that accepting time for what it is, or what we think it to be, is the wrong route to go. Time is not an illusion nor is it a force to be reckoned with. Einstein deemed the concept of past, present, and future as an illusion but time itself is not a magical being that slips through our fingers in the air; instead, we release it from our grasp. Rather than weaving minutes into hours and hours into days so that we may inherit a perfectly quilted time frame, we should be balancing our present moments. This is not the same as saying "Live in the moment," or whatever other cliché associated with Time. Instead, it's a way of acknowledging Time for what it is and it's presence in our lives. If you're clawing your way to the top for a business, don't allow that climb to place other important things in your life on the back burner. Start a family while you're creating a steady financial stance for yourself, travel when you want instead of when the opportunity arises. Accept responsibility for the things you have a desire to do, but have yet to do. Time is not against us; we have our designated time frames and it is our job to fill that frame with as many snapshots of a beautiful life as possible. Balance is key.
Death
How does one come to terms with Death at all? Helen Mirren's character firmly believes that we are looking at Death from all the wrong angles. Be that as it may, the answer to Death is not so different than Time. In the case of Time, I said the key was balance. Death's balance, however, lies in management-- a feature that Helen Mirren handles with grace as she coaches one of Smith's companions into dealing with his affairs promptly. Clearly we are at the mercy of Death-- seeing that our necks are not printed with expiration dates like milk bottles. Our life should not focus on beating Death in a race in which we could never win, but our mission should be to handle our affairs as needed before our expiration date approaches. In the case of the fleeting character of Howard's little girl, there isn't much to work with; the story of one of his co-workers is a different matter. Simon partakes in the plot against Howard's mental state in an attempt to place his ducks in a proper row, but he misses the picture directly in front of him-- leaving his ducks askew. Although Simon was attempting to manage his affairs, his denial of more serious matters left his family in the dark. We spend too much time trying to care for our family from the grave when we should be caring for them emotionally while we are sitting next to them. It's a feeble attempt to ease their minds later on, but that leaves loved ones troubled and in the dark as we walk among them.
Collateral Beauty may not make as much sense as we would like for it to; what exactly does Collateral Beauty mean anyway? What does make sense though is that we're all in need of a reminder of the invisible forces we're collectively battling; even more so, we need advice on what we're doing wrong in reference to those forces. Do not enter the theater thinking that this film may compare to Seven Pounds from an intellectual standpoint. It's unfair to the cast and the production team to even begin to compare this feel-good movie to such a complexity. Collateral Beauty is a year-end film that has chalk and chalkboard in hand with pointers on how to make 2017 the best year yet.
