The passage of two years after his 6-year-old daughter’s death finds grieving advertising exec Will Smith addressing letters to Love, Time, and Death. Reasoning that two years is adequate time to suffer, his callous co-workers and purported BFFs (Kate Winslet, Edward Norton, and Michael Pena) employ a private investigator to prove that Smith is mentally unsound. Borrowing a page from Gaslight, the trio of well-intentioned backstabbers goes about hiring the services of unemployed actors (Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, and Jacob Latimore) to personate the three abstractions. Screenwriter Allan Loeb (The Switch, Here Comes the Boom) wrings gallons of ancillary anguish without finding so much as one iota of the genuine emotion needed to pull off something like this. Scrooge Smith’s suffering is palpable, but the pathos-paved road to redemption is littered with a few Tiny Tims too many. This leaves ample room for the A-list stars to suffer in colossal closeup. Audiences will mourn the passing of 97 minutes. David Frankel directs. (2016) — Scott Marks
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