Entertainment
'Collateral Beauty's Trailer Has An Emotional Song
As far as I'm concerned, the second that Halloween is over, it officially becomes Christmas season. As well as providing the perfect opportunity with which to legitimize eating a variety of comfort foods throughout November and December, it also tends to deliver awesome Christmas films to our screens. These can vary between being funny, romantic, and cute, but they can also be tremendously moving. And as the new trailer for Collateral Beauty proves, it definitely looks capable of soliciting more than a few Christmas tears from your eyes this season. I'll be absolutely honest here and say that the trailer in itself almost had me choked up in a couple of places, and one of the reasons for that may be due to the song from the Collateral Beauty trailer being big time emotional.
Which is what you'd expect from a movie in which a man (Howard, played by the ever brilliant Will Smith) starts writing letters to the abstract concepts of death, time, and love as he continues to mourn the death of his baby daughter. Of course, with the magical power of letter writing (it's a lost art, you guys), these concepts become personified, and Howard is forced to literally face his struggle with them all. It's at this point in the trailer that the affecting melody and fervent, gigantic vocals start coming in. And now I totally can't get this damn song out of my head.
The tune in question is actually "Let's Hurt Tonight" by One Republic, a song that can be found on their latest album Oh My My, which was released at the start of October. Though it wasn't released as a single, the song has still received notoriety due to its enormous ballad sound, as well as notable live performances of it gaining some attention online (such as their rendition of "Let's Hurt Tonight" at the 2016 MTV European Music Awards).
The lyrics of the song also reflect a notable and tangible truth — that there's no hurt without love — something that also happens to appear to be a palpable thread in the narrative of Collateral Beauty. And, though "Let's Hurt Tonight" is framed around the romantic idea of love, it still reflects the idea that hurt, heartbreak, and mourning are all worthwhile to feel in return for even a moment of pure love, as perfectly illustrated by the lyric, "Oh, I know that this love is pain, but we can't cut it from out these veins."
Ultimately, what makes the song work is that it's a mixture of both deep despair and great optimism. It balances the dynamics of a low, subdued, and sombre verse with the high, vigorous and impassioned chorus, showing both the light and the dark of love.
Collateral Beauty may appear to be one hell of a Christmas tear-jerker, but the inclusion of "Let's Hurt Tonight" makes me think that there'll be plenty of uplifting and beautiful sentiments to take from the movie too. So be sure to smuggle in some tissues and milk duds to your local movie theatre when Collateral Beauty is released on Dec 16.
Images: Warner Bros. Pictures
