Will Smith plays an advertising executive left bereft by the death of his six-year-old daughter
Will Smith plays an advertising executive left bereft by the death of his six-year-old daughter.
Two yeas on from her death, Smith has given up on life and work, spending his time building elaborate domino chains and penning angry letters to Love, Time and Death.
Unsurprisingly, his company is about to go under.
So despairing colleagues Edward Norton, Kate Winslet and Michael Peña hit upon the bizarre idea of hiring three actors (Keira Knightley, Jacob Latimore and Helen Mirren) to impersonate Love, Death and Time and jolt their boss out of his grief.
Despite the best efforts of a stellar cast, this is an absurdly drippy fable. More worryingly, a mercenary streak fatally undermines the film’s would-be wise and noble sentiments about loss and bereavement – the schemers being motivated as much by the prospect of getting rich from the successful sale of the company as by concern for their colleague.
Still, director David Frankel gives the proceedings a glossy sheen, while Mirren proves the pick of the cast, selling its wackadoodle premise with twinkly wit.
