By Gill Pringle
The critics have not been kind to Collateral Beauty, the ensemble holiday weepie anchored by superstar, Will Smith. It’s currently sitting at 13% on Rotten Tomatoes and 24/100 on MetaCritic, while we weren’t too impressed with it ourselves. Still, we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking the talent involved – not just Smith but the likes of Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Michael Pena, Helen Mirren and more – entered into the undertaking with anything but the noblest of intentions. For Smith the script, by producer Allan Loeb, put him in mind of the Christmas-themed films he enjoyed as a child, and the chance to visit that sentimental but resonant emotional territory was one he relished. “It spoke to that Christmas flavour that I remembered growing up – It’s a Wonderful Life and those types of films that are right on the edge of fantasy with that Christmas magic, but dealing with things that are deeply and powerfully real and human.”
In the film, Smith plays Howard Inlet, a brilliant and popular advertising executive whose world falls apart after his young daughter succumbs to a rare form of cancer. “This was a guy who had the world on a string – everything was perfect – he had it! He had life figured out. And then suffered a loss and had to make his way back to even believing there was a possibility to have joy in the end. I love that journey.”
Smith’s appreciation of the material has certainly sharpened by his own experiences at the time of filming. His own father, Willard Smith Senior, was diagnosed with terminal cancer while Smith was engaged in principal photography, eventually passing away in November.
“It was a truly beautiful time for he and I,” Smith recalls. “I was in Howard’s mind studying all of the different religious bases to find an answer for how we recover from this kind of loss. I was sharing that with my father through the experience – everything from the Tibetan book of the Dead to Elizabeth Kubler Ross [writer of On Death and Dying] and everything that you’d possibly do to deal with the inevitable pain of death. I was able to do that as Howard but also able to share and work on that with my father. The idea of that loss and that type of pain – this movie and these ideas have changed me forever. It’s the ultimate human difficulty – how do you deal with death and loss? It was the perfect life/art confluence. I hope that people can feel the depth and power of what’s going on in the film.”
Collateral Beauty is just the latest in Smith’s run of more emotional, some might say awards-bait, performances, following the likes of The Pursuit of Happyness, Seven Pounds and Concussion (the furore around Smith not getting an Oscar nomination for the latter contributed to the #OscarSoWhite campaign that led to changes to the way the Academy selects members). It stands in marked contrast to Smith’s earlier action and comedy roles such as Bad Boys and Men in Black, although we should remember his early dramatic turn in Fred Schepisi’s Six Degrees of Separation. Smith asserts that his recent choices are simply the result of the natural maturation process. “I’m just having more life experiences that are allowing me to be able to connect to different and more complex, deeper human emotions. As an artist, I am my tool. My life experience is my well.
“My daughter just turned 16,” he continues. “So now I’m open to be able to deliver unique and different textured performances of a father, as I’m growing older. I’ve been in the spotlight for 30 years. [Old musical partner DJ Jazzy] Jeff and I celebrated 30 years since our first record. I was a kid. The things that I was doing had a beautiful, youthful exuberance to them – I was trying to maintain some piece of that. But some of the things I think about – what I am and how I live on a daily basis – it’s a little bit more complex than The Fresh Prince.”
Collateral Beauty is in cinemas January 12, 2017.
