'Collateral Beauty' Review: A Tragic Tale That's Overly Manipulative

— -- Starring Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Edward Norton and Keira Knightley

Rated PG-13

Three out of five stars

"Collateral Beauty" is the type of movie that gets killed by critics. Seemingly cloying and blatantly manipulative, it could be construed as a set piece to show off its lead actor’s emotional range -- and those impressions are just based on the trailer. It’s enough for many in the movie-critiquing community to start sharpening our handy pitchforks straightaway.

But for the average moviegoer, who doesn’t care about being manipulated into a sobbing, sloppy flesh-bag of tears, "Collateral Beauty" might just be your feel-bad movie of the year.

Will Smith is Howard, who embodies everything we love about Will Smith. He’s the charming, suave head of an advertising company, a new age-y corporate messiah worshiped by his employees, partners and customers alike.

Cut to three years later, and Howard’s devoid of personality. He’s alive, but most certainly dead on the inside. The flame that illuminated his life has been extinguished -- and that flame was his 6-year-old daughter.

Howard’s business partner, Whit (Edward Norton), and his top associates, played by Kate Winslet and Michael Pena, need to take action to save the company. They reluctantly hire a private investigator to follow Howard in the hope of finding something they can use to prove he’s no longer fit to run the company.

What they find is that Howard has been writing letters to the universe -- specifically, to Time, Love and Death. After meeting an impressive actress (Keira Knightley) during one of the company’s commercial auditions, Whit hatches a plot. What if he hires Knightley and her acting buddies to play Love (Knightley), Death (Helen Mirren), and Time (Jacob Lattimore). The idea is to make Howard appear unstable enough that he has to cede control of the company to Whit.

Haters are going to hate but, in my opinion, Will Smith has one of the finest moments of his career in this movie. As a whole, though, it’s not one of his best performances, and that mostly has to with a script that gives him very little opportunity to show nuance. But Smith and director David Frankel certainly know how to tap your tear ducts until they run dry.

"Collateral Beauty" isn’t exactly a good movie. As noted, it’s overly manipulative, and it also has several glaring continuity problems. At the same time, this tragic tale truly does offer catharsis and hope.