Dear David Frankel’s “Collateral Beauty”

 

“We’re here to connect. Love, time, death. Now these three things connect every single human being on earth. We long for love, we wish we had more time, and we fear death…”

∞

“Collateral Beauty“,

As a movie, you touched me long before I even watched you, and not because you follow the deep personal tragedy of a grieving man… no, no, no. You primarily made me sad, because I know that deep in my heart, you were a movie I was supposed to create…

As a writer and aspiring Director, I’ve spent years coming up with different parts of a grand puzzle, and with every new addition, the direction becomes clearer and clearer. With that, there are certain themes that have landed on me. Which brings us back to you as a film…

Will Smith – who so brilliantly portrays the grieving man in question – takes pen to paper and writes 3 letters: to Love, to Time, and to Death.

Love.
Time.
Death.

This alone was enough to blow me sideways, because the concept is familiar to me.

I’m an avid letter writer, and these 3 abstracts are already so well acquainted with me, as I’ve written plenty to them…

Love knows just how devoted I’ve been to finding her; my life is a throne beneath her feet. I’m just awaiting her arrival. Patiently waiting, always.

Time knows of my deep, deep fascination with him. Time; the pulse of everything, the core of all that I do and pursue. It is the thread that holds it all together, and simultaneously pulls it apart.

Death… well, I’m not brave enough to call upon the ears and eyes of Death to hear what I have to say… so my subject is slightly different here; I’ve substituted this with Infinity. Yet Infinity primarily questions mortality. Death marks the end and the beginning. It’s the finite and the infinite. It marches to the same beat. Infinitely.