Watch: Collateral Beauty trailer is an emotional whirlwind courtesy Will Smith

After kicking ass an anti-hero in Suicide Squad, Will Smith is returning to the big screen to contemplate grief, love and morality in his new film Collateral Beauty. [caption id=“attachment_2995488” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  A Still from the Collateral Beauty Trailer[/caption] The plot follows a successful New York advertising executive, Howard (played by Smith) who has just lost his daughter and retreats from life entirely. Implored by his friends to take action, he starts writing and mailing letters to abstract concepts like love, time and death. …And they start writing back. Helen Mirren is death, Keira Knightley is love and Jacob Latimore in Time. Though Smith’s protagonist is initially skeptical, he slowly allows himself to be guided by these forces, and listens to their sage advice on how to piece his life back together. The film seems like it was influenced by It’s a Wonderful Life with Smith playing the role of the protagonist George Bailey. While It’s a Wonderful Life had an unexplained, otherworldly element that showed George the horror of reality had he not existed in; Collateral Beauty’s trailer is ambiguous about whether the personifications for Love, Death and Time are real or merely actors that Howard’s friends have set up for him to get better. With David Frankel (of Devil Wears Prada fame) directing the film and a 16 December 2016 release date, we wonder how it will hold up against other big films like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone starer La La Land which are releasing on same day. Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Naomie Harris and Michael Peña also star in the film.

Collateral Beauty opens in US cinemas on 16 December 2016.