This past weekend I had the opportunity to see an advance screening of the film Collateral Beauty through the Navy subase theater. I knew nothing about it besides what I’d seen in the trailer. Spoiler-free review: it’s a funny, touching, gut-wrenching movie about a man whose daughter died and the three people trying to help him. It doesn’t take its subject matter lightly, but it still manages to find the humor that comes naturally to so many people. It holds true to the message of the title: when something terrible happens, don’t forget to look at the collateral beauty. It doesn’t make what happened easy or happy or okay, but it’s there. Don’t ignore it.
I think this movie is one that doesn’t hand you anything. Plotwise, it could be a little confusing at times. Apart from the sentence that contains the title, none of the moral messages are explicitly stated- while most of the major characters make a clear declaration of what love, time, or death means to them, none of their words are presented as gospel truth. What you get out of it is whatever it makes you think about. For myself, seeing the topic on the big screen pushed me to revisit a piece of writing that I’d started but wasn’t satisfied with. It helped me think, even if I haven’t had any revelations. Do I fear death? Do I desire more time? Do I live like love matters?
Collateral Beauty is a good film for mature family audiences. It does involve the death of a young child- even though her suffering isn’t shown, that’s heavy content, and its toll is written clearly in Will Smith’s face in every scene. There is the type of language spoken by grieving, angry adults that earns it a PG-13 rating. Overall it can be a valuable thought provoker and discussion starter for teens and adults. Even in a busy time I'm glad I took a couple of hours out to see this.
