Collateral Beauty is a movie about a clinically depressed man, Howard (Will Smith), who is grieving the loss of his young daughter. The main themes presented in the movie are love, time and death, personified by three characters. As the movie says, "these three things connect every single human being on earth. We long for love, we wish we had more time, and we fear death." 

As Jacobsen (2016) explains, '“spectacular death” is a death that has for all practical intents and purposes been transformed into a spectacle. It is something that we witness at a safe distance but hardly ever experience upfront' (p. 10). This is exactly the case in the movie.

First, there is a safe distance (created by the movie screen) between the experiences of the main character and the spectator. The fact is, we are only comfortable talking about death when it is others'. In other words, when it does not touch us personally. 

Second, the subject of death is commercialized: it is made into a movie to make money. Moreover, we find de-ritualization of death in the fact that even by talking about death, what the movie really wants to do is celebrate life. This is clear just by watching the trailer, in which we find some exemplary quotes: Love (Keira Knightley) saying "I am the reason for everything. If you can accept that, maybe you get to live again" or Claire (Kate Winslet) who says: "he used to love life, right now he hates it." 

One could argue that the fact that the main character does not seem to accept the death of his daughter represents the third period described by the historian Philippe Ariès, which is the fear of other's death ("Your death"). In reality, the main message conveyed is the importance of seeing the beauty in life, even through tough times. It is about dealing with grief and the process of healing, rather than death itself, which can sometimes look ugly. 

References

Ariès, P. (1974) Western attitudes toward death: from the Middle Ages to the present.  London, UK: Marion Boyars Publishers. 

Movieclips Trailers (Creator). (2016, September 7). Collateral Beauty Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Will Smith Movie [video file].

Jacobsen, M. H. (2016). “Spectacular Death”—Proposing a New Fifth Phase to Philippe Ariès’s Admirable History of Death. Humanities 2016, 5 (19), 1-20