Will Smith is most commonly known in his acting career for portraying intricately dynamic characters in iconic roles from Men in Black to the Fresh Price of Belaire in biographical films.

His recent role does not fall short of that expectation.  Smith embodies the grief that his character, Howard, experiences after the traumatic loss of his six-year-old  daughter.

The film highlights Howard’s advertising philosophy that people are most concerned with three abstractions: love, time, and death.

Howard has taken to writing letters to these concepts in order to cope his immense pain.

Three actors are hired by co-workers to play embodiments of love, time, and death, and they will speak to Howard on behalf of his friends.

They’re played by Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore

The plot follows schemes that are pretty amusingly and  intricately rigged and yet still manage to be believable.

Collateral Beauty manages to be both elegant and brutally honest with both Howard’s and others’ emotional pain.

The film talks all around it’s title without actually explaining what it means. The audience can suppose it’s the opposite of collateral damage– that a bad thing’s ripple effects can cause beauty in addition to the destruction.

It’s a strange way to conceptualize the death of an adult, let alone a 6-year-old.