On December 16 of 2016, my absolute favorite movie of the year came out. You may have heard about it or seen the previews, it’s called “Collateral Beauty.” This movie starred a heap of amazing actors and actresses. Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Helen Mirren all have two things in common; they are all award winning actors and star in “Collateral Beauty.” If movies are your life like they are mine, you hear these names and think “has to be a fantastic movie.” Well if you go on “Rotten Tomatoes” the critics gave it a whopping 11% and the people gave it a decent 64%. I went and saw this movie on Christmas Day and I can tell you that the critics are so wrong that it makes me absolutely sick. I walked into the movie theater very pumped to see this movie just based off the previews, and I can honestly say, it blew my expectations out of the water.

I want to start this by telling you just how amazing Will Smith was in this movie. When you hear the name “Will Smith,” you think of “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” or maybe the movie “Hitch” but no one ever pictures him playing a genuine, serious, and down to earth character. Well, in this movie, he played this role to perfection. Smith’s character begins the movie as the lead advertising executive at his company, and he is giving a speech on the three obscurities in life. Love, Time, and Death. He tells us that these three things are the fabric of life because, in his own words, “We long for love, wish we had more time, and we fear death.” After this scene we flash forward and see Smith’s character as a sad, depressed man whose unproductiveness is causing the business to slowly fail. His friends and colleagues need him to either snap out of it or need to prove to the heads that he is unfit to run the business.

His friends and colleagues understand his pain and why he is depressed but they need their amazing boss and friend back, so they hire actors to play the three obscurities that Smith’s character referenced at the beginning of the movie. Love, Time, and Death. Smith’s character was found to be writing these obscurities letters, pretty much yelling at them for taking his daughter. These actors they hired started visiting Smith’s character to “answer” his letters. This forces Smith’s character to think he is going crazy.

Now that you know the little over explained plot of the movie, let me tell you why it was my absolute favorite movie of 2016. With all of the great movies that came out in 2016, like, “Rogue One,” “Captain America: Civil War,” “Finding Dory,” and many more great movies, you might think I’m insane for saying this movie is my favorite of 2016. Well, despite all of these fantastic movies, Collateral Beauty takes that cake for me. There are so many factors that go into why I loved this movie. Let’s start with the overall feel of this movie, depression.

“Depression? That’s why you love this movie?” You’re probably asking yourself this right now and I know, it sounds super weird and sad but just bear with me. The raw emotion in this movie had me on the brink of tears from the beginning to the end, would’ve bawled my eyes out but I was with family. Like I said earlier, Smith played his role to absolute perfection. There are some scenes where he has no dialogue at all and is riding his bike through traffic or just down the street and they zoom in on his face and you can just see the sadness and despair in his eyes, it really hit me to the core. You always hear about how the death of a kid changes you, Smith took it to a whole new level.  If you’ve ever lost someone super close to you, like a friend, a parent, or anyone, you will love this movie. It will 100% make you bawl your eyes out, especially after the speeches Smith gives in this movie. They will hit you so hard in the feels, just like they did for me.

Whether you this is your first time hearing about this movie or you refuse to see it because of the reviews, I highly recommend this movie to you. It is very moving and powerful, and has an absolutely fantastic cast. I absolutely loved this movie and scoff at the critics who are saying this is a terrible film.