The All-encompassing Beauty: Facing The Death Of A Loved One

The all-encompassing beauty is a 2016 film directed by David Frankel. The film was well anticipated and has an awesome role-playing. Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Will Smith and Keira Knightley are just a few of the notable actors in the film. But even after all these preconceptions and an awesome cast of actors, most of the reviews were negative.

From a critical perspective, the film really loses itself in melodrama.  It fishes for easy tears through as many emotional conversations as possible. But it’s just a surface.

All-encompassing beauty has a very interesting theme, but it drifts into extremely forced sentimentalism. It just isn’t credible; it’s too Hollywood-like. The holiday-like staging in New York also doesn’t help much. It makes it even more of a television Christmas movie to be watched with the whole family.

However, the idea is interesting and the impact of the film clearly comes from Dickens ’Christmas Carol. It tells the story of a successful man who is deeply depressed after the death of his 6-year-old daughter.

His co-workers and friends try to help him by hiring three actors to appear in his life. They are meant to present three specific abstract concepts: love, death, and time. This part of the film is meant to be a metaphor for life. It’s as if it shows us the fears we face with depression.

Let’s now set aside the syrupyness of the film, the predictable plot, and how unnatural everything is. Without all that, all-encompassing beauty is basically a story about a very tragic situation.

So in this article, we are not going to focus on the critical side. Instead, we are going to explore the message of the film and the psychological lessons that come from it.

Loss in all-encompassing beauty

The film begins with a motivational speech by Howard Inlet, a character played by Will Smith. He is one of the most successful men in the advertising industry. During her speech, she talks about how all people are connected by three things: love, time, and death. At one point, he says, “we long for love, we hope we have more time, and we fear death”.

Only a moment later do we move on to a very different reality where Howard has lost his 6-year-old daughter as well as a passion for his work, friends and life. He no longer speaks, he shows no interest in anything and he is almost always bursting into tears.

But the death of her daughter not only makes her sink into depression that prevents her from living her life. He is also divorced from his wife, which is very common in such situations. There are often many things involved in a case that have a part to play in it. For example, one party may handle the matter “better” than the other, or the parties will blame each other. One of them may never get over it.

The grieving process

The grief process is extremely tough for anyone who has to go through it. That is even more true when it comes to the death of a child. For some people, grief gets better naturally over time. They go through different stages until they are finally able to accept the situation.

But there are also people who get completely stuck. Difficulty moving forward can lead to illness. In Howard’s case, we can see that he is going through extreme depression in a denial phase where he is unable to talk about it or interact with other people.

Her friends and co-workers are worried about her mental state. It’s hard to look at someone dear to someone who has always been full of life, suddenly sinking in and unable to move on in their lives. That’s why they decide to help him.

Of course, they also do it because of his work, which has a direct impact on them. So they hire a private detective who finds out how Howard writes letters of love, death, and time. Those are concepts he talked about very positively at the beginning of the film.

Upon learning this, they decide to hire three actors to present the embodiment of these three concepts. That way, they can demonstrate that his mental health is not enough for him to work. At the same time, it should also help him notice the situation he is in.

The placement of the film at Christmas time is also important. It is a season when people’s emotions are on the surface. It’s a time to look back, a time to ghosts of the past (like in Dickens ’story) and a time to remember people who are no longer among us.

Parables and the meaning of death

Howard’s friends also go through their own personal difficulties. They all watch as he jeopardizes their work, the only thing they have left. Whit just resigned and his daughter hates him: he has also lost something important in his life.

Claire is dedicated to her work. He never started a family and he is worried about getting old, that it is too late. Simon finds out he has a deadly illness. But he has just become a father, and he doesn’t want to tell his family what’s going on.

Actors depicting metaphorical characters (love, death, and time) create a deep connection with these other characters. Death unites with Simon and helps him accept his destiny. Time combines with Claire.

Three different stories intertwine with Howard’s plot and his path to acceptance. She starts taking group therapy with other people who are in a similar situation to her.

Death is a fate to which we are all doomed. It doesn’t matter who you are in life or how much money you have. After all, we will all die. Juan de Valdés Leal has made a painting called Finis gloriae mundi , which demonstrates this idea well.

The Spanish painter depicts the disintegration of bodies in Bishop’s luxury coffin, which is unadornedly at odds with the extremely simple coffin behind it. At the top of the painting is a divine hand holding a scale with reference to heavenly judgment.

The message of all-encompassing beauty

The all-encompassing beauty tells of a very successful man who has to deal with the death of his daughter. In that sense, the film shows us from the very beginning that death is global.

A little less funny fact : It became clear to Will Smith during the filming that his own father didn’t have a long life left. It is another example of how death can appear unexpectedly to anyone and at any time.

It is impossible for the protagonist of all-encompassing beauty to understand how his own daughter can die before her, before she even had a chance to live her life. But the film also shows us that while we can measure time, it’s just a concept. We have complete freedom to use it however we want.

Then there is love, which is the energy of all the things around us, even grief. It’s the all-encompassing beauty that the film wants us to see and understand.