It’s a new week and a time for another new movie review. This one has been out for a few weeks now, but I wanted to wait until my whole family of four could make it before I went to see it. I also know I’m a day behind, but I was away from my computer this weekend, so I missed my normal day, but at least you still get to read my words. So, this week’s choice is IF by director John Krasinski, who is quietly (pun intended) becoming an excellent director. But, before we move on, there is nothing imaginary about these words: Spoilers ahead. So, IF you would rather come back after seeing the movie, just click here to check out some of my other reviews first.
Ok, now onto the reason we are here; IF, or Imaginary Friend. I have to admit, this movie was way better than I originally thought it was going to be. Even though I guessed the end about halfway through, it still was entertaining, heartfelt, and was filled with well-known voices doing the Ifs. But more on those later.
The movie starts with Bea (The Walking Dead’s Cailey Fleming) moving into her grandmother’s house. During the opening credits, we see that her mom had gotten sick and passed away and now it appears that her dad (played by John Krasinski directing himself) is also sick, or in his case, has heart issues. So, as he gets checked into the hospital, Bea is taken home by her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) to stay there while her dad has surgery.
The apartment building where she stays has several floors and one night while she is out, she sees something and follows it to the top floor. She can’t tell what it is yet but sees it go into one of the rooms. But with only the voice of Ryan Reynolds behind it, she is scared and leaves. At this point, I was starting to get a little disappointed because the setup was being drugged out too far, but this is where things started to pick up as well.
That voice behind the door was indeed Reynolds, as Cal, a guy supposedly stuck trying to assist imaginary friends by finding them a new kid to believe in them. Bea can see them just as Cal can, so the two main IFs in our story want her to be Cal’s partner. The two that I refer to are Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Blue (Steve Carell). After some back and forth, Cal agrees and they go to work trying to find homes for a laundry list of IFs. Just check out the star power that lent their voices to these mostly small roles:
Including Waller-Bridge and Carell, there is also Krasinski again (as Marshmallow), Louis Gossett Jr. (as Lewis, his last role before his death), Awkwafina (as Bubble), Emily Blunt (of course) (as Unicorn), George Clooney (as Spaceman), Bradley Cooper (as Ice), Matt Damon (as Flower), Bill Hader (as Banana), Richard Jenkins (as Art Teacher), Keegan-Michael Key (as Slime), Blake Lively (of course again) (as Octopuss), Christopher Meloni (as Cosmo), Matthew Rhys (as Ghost), Sam Rockwell (as Guardian Dog), Amy Schumer (as Gummy Bear), Jon Stewart (as Robot), and Brad Pitt (as Keith, another invisible character in a Reynolds movie).
That’s literally enough celebs to fill up an entire paragraph and an entire imaginary retirement home. All the IFs are great characters within themselves. But as things are not working out, Bea shifts to trying to reunite the IFs with their former kids instead of with a new kid. She finds success with her grandmother as she learns that Blossom used to be her IF. From there, things start to look up as they start to find success with Blue and his former kid Jeremy (Bobby Moynihan) and some others.
Eventually, Bea gets a call that her dad isn’t doing well and breaks down in the hospital finally admitting that she is still just a kid and she needs him. As the sadness meter gets dialed up, this is about the same time you realize that her dad is going to be ok. As she prepares to leave her grandmother’s house, she goes up to tell Cal and the others goodbye, she finds out that the room they were in doesn’t exist and that Cal was her IF all along. This could be a mind-blowing reveal had I not already figured it out earlier in the film. Enough clues were left out to pick up on it.
So, to sum this all up. This is not only a great family movie, but it’s also a funny movie, a sad movie, and a silly movie all in one and that’s ok. It’s definitely worth the watch as Fleming and Reynolds had a great on-screen partnership and it’s fun to try and figure out all of the characters’ voices. With all of that, I give this movie a 7 out of 10. This score is mostly based on the pace of the story and the slow start.
Ok, that’s it for this week, thanks for waiting an extra day to read this and tune in next week. I will be back for another mindless movie review of some sort.
