Seven names, seven strangers, one secret — the tagline of “Seven Pounds” is vague and corny at best. But don’t be fooled: With a spare, breathless piano soundtrack, an Oscar-worthy, glass-blown script and Rosario Dawson’s most fragile performance yet, Will Smith’s latest appeal to the Academy promises to be just as heartbreaking as 2006 Christmas tearjerker “The Pursuit of Happyness.”

Smith plays Ben Thomas, a secretive IRS agent with a hard-line, dark-angel attitude toward doing good deeds. He’s searching for seven people upon which to bestow his “gifts” (any more hints and it’ll be spoilery), but must test them first to ascertain their niceness. Dawson plays Emily, a benefactor of Ben’s brand of tough love who eventually falls for him, igniting a time-bound romance — Emily’s weak health could fail at any moment — whose ground-shaking conclusion should deliver a twang to the heart. “Do you consider yourself a good person?” Ben asks Emily in the film’s trailer. Better check twice. In theaters Dec. 19.