IF Is a Tribute to Imagination and Creativity Notably Lacking in Imagination and Creativity

I hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Also, I was not enchanted

Early in IF, the dour, thirteen-year-old protagonist tells her father, played by writer-director John Krasinski, that she appreciates his attempts to cheer her up with zany shenanigans, but not everything has to be fun and entertaining. He’s trying too hard, and it’s not working. 

That, unfortunately, describes IF itself. It wants to enchant, dazzle, and amaze when it never manages to be even mildly diverting. It is a tribute to the life-affirming, life-changing powers of creativity and imagination that is notably lacking in creativity and imagination. 

IF desperately wants to be not just liked but loved. It wants to be your favorite movie, your child’s favorite movie, and your inner child’s favorite movie but does nothing to earn any of those distinctions. 

It’s a beige, boring, basic Jim-from-The Office Yankee Candle-ass motion picture, and I fucking hated every minute of it. 

That might be a little harsh, but I hated this movie. I hate to use harsh terms like “quite poor” and “not good,” but IF is not good and quite poor.

Child actress Cailey Fleming leads the parade of melancholy and moroseness as Bea, the sad little girl I mentioned above. She’s grief-stricken over the prolonged illness and death of her beloved mother. 

She’s responded poorly to the trauma of losing a parent by growing up prematurely and joylessly. Her father wants to delight the child within with Charlie Chaplin by way of Robin Williams shtick that is out of Krasinski’s wheelhouse, but Bea is in a furious hurry to grow up. 

IF takes place in the endless shadow of death. It’s dour, depressing, and dark in a way that it does not earn. Darkness in a children’s movie is often good, particularly for adults who might be turned off or even repulsed by the sugary, syrupy sweetness that characterizes so much entertainment targeted at kiddies. 

But that darkness has to serve a purpose. It has to do something beyond bum us out with its grim reminder that death awaits all of us, and abandonment and loneliness are an innate part of life for children, adults, and imaginary friends alike. IF was shot by superstar cinematographer and frequent Steven Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kamiński, who also shot the tonally similar Schindler’s List.

Bea is deep in mourning when she spies Blossom (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), an anthropomorphic butterfly she learns is an imaginary friend and an associate of her neighbor Cal (Ryan Reynolds). 

IF features Ryan Reynolds as you’ve never seen him before: glum, low-energy, oddly humorless, and no damn fun at all. Why cast Van Wilder in a movie if you won’t allow him to wreak Van Wilder-style mischief? I was patiently Waiting for the hilarity to begin. It never did.

Reynolds’ performance represents a massive miscalculation on the film’s part. It tones down the actor’s brash charisma and highly caffeinated energy so dramatically that there’s nothing left. 

Bea then meets Blue, a purple furry monster voiced by Steve Carell. IF needs us to be charmed by Blue and find him adorable. It wants to sell our children Blue dolls and spin off the character for an HBO series.

Unfortunately, like all of the imaginary friends, Blue feels generic and bland. There’s nothing to him beyond being big and purple and furry and enthusiastic. Carell is an appealing performer who cannot make Blue an appealing character, a memorable character, or even a character who is not wildly underwhelming. 

As a filmmaker, Krasinski continually swings for the fences and strikes out. For example, there’s a flashy, attention-hungry set piece built around Tina Turner’s “Better Be Good to Me,” where Bea is ushered into the fantastical world of imaginary friends, where she learns that anything is possible. The only limits are those of her imagination or some such horseshit. Cal responds much differently to all of the whimsy and wonder: he’s over it. I know the feeling. I shared the feeling. 

Krasinski is trying hard. Oh, sweet blessed Lord, is he ever exerting effort. You feel all of the writer-director-star’s over-work and the furious labor when you should be feeling the wonderful yet wistful emotions the film spends 104 minutes trying to cram down your throat. 

Bea finds herself when she gets an afterschool job pairing imaginary friends with humans who need them. The imaginary friend/human relationship is supposed to be symbiotic: The neurotic, emotionally needy imaginary friends need human beings as much, if not more, than human beings need them. 

Instead of disappointing us with just the wildly underwhelming Blue, IF gives us an entire exhausted universe of fantasy creatures who feel like lazy first drafts who were never fleshed out. Individually and collectively, they’re not much.

IF has monsters of tremendous quantity but negligible quality. The imaginary friends are sad because people have either forgotten them or they worry they will be forgotten. This allows loneliness and fear of rejection to join death, grief, and mourning as the engines that fuel this children’s movie about imaginary friends. 

The night before we saw IF, my son and I went to an event at the Center for Puppetry Arts, where independent filmmakers and puppeteers showcased their homemade handiwork in a series of trippy, psychedelic, and mind-blowing short films. 

The gulf in creativity and originality between what those total independents did on a tiny budget, largely by themselves, as opposed to what Jim from The Office and that pro-CIA propaganda series did with one hundred million dollars is vast. 

It’s the difference between homemade artistry and craft and Hollywood hokum. Michael Giacchino’s excessive score plays to our emotions, nudging us in the ribs at every turn to remind us just how lucky we are to be lost in a magical world of fantasy and imagination. 

My inner child hated IF, and my actual nine-year-old hated it as well. I was very aggressively not a fan, for reasons this review hopefully makes clear. 

One star out of five