A sad 12-year-old girl regains her sense of happiness and childlike joy in a very sentimental but cute fantasy adventure. IF pulls at your heartstrings. John Krasinksi, who serves as writer, director, producer, and co-star wants to make you cry buckets. He does that but also gets the same number of big laughs in an amazing second act. A couple of narrative bumps occur. The great reveal is predictable from the beginning. It’s just another one of those cases where a film takes too long to show something the audience already knows. This cannot hamper such an arresting visual spectacle plus a captivating lead performance.
Elizabeth “Bea” (Cailey Fleming) comes to her grandmother’s (Fiona Shaw) apartment in Brooklyn Heights, New York. She has no interest in playing with toys, crayons and sketchbooks from when she was five years old anymore. Bea declares vehemently that she is past being a kid. She means business here now. Grandma brings Bea along to visit her Dad (John Krasinski) at the surgery ward of a local hospital. For Bea it’s all gone over head; she is bracing herself for another tragedy.
A camcorder hidden away in the guest room meets Bea’s eyes when they are caught by its glinting surface there on her way back from outside getting herself a power cable after dark while dodging someone small behind her heels and then running after what appears like some walking girl leading upstairs into the top apartment of this building before knocking it down with no friends or housemates anywhere nearby at all just wanting someone my age to talk to,” says Bea sadly only for Calvin (Ryan Reynolds), whose voices drowned suddenly told him shut up and go away.
Her decision leads Bea following Calvin into what turns out to be his bedroom next evening revealing more than expected because upon reaching nearness he simply disappears accompanied by some fluffy pink animal before her eyes and this is where she faints with a thud. At Calvin’s, she wakes up to Blue (Steve Carell) who keeps sneezing and the black and white fluttering of wings around Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge). Calvin stops her warning that she has opened Pandora’s box. Bea, like Calvin, can see imaginary friends.
The catch is that everybody has IF when they were kids. As you grow up and become more cynical, those memories will fade away. It doesn’t mean though that you don’t have any IFs anymore. They still exist only now they have no children and no purpose in their life whatsoever. There are a few lucky ones who can actually see them giving them a responsibility to find new little people for them to hang out with; but it frustrates Calvin since he sucks at it kind of thing as well as doing this job right …Enter Bea.
Krasinki (The Office, A Quiet Place, Jack Ryan) sends his message loud and clear.
Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows made of sugar candy. Everyone has some challenges which could dim their happy moods. The death of our loved ones must not let us change for worse such that we turn into monsters . Hospital scenes purposely look ridiculous from Krasinki perspective.The father is trying his best not to be depressed.He wants both protect Bea’s innocence while avoiding being sent into depression himself .
To underscore this point, Krasinksi borrows heavily from major blockbusters . A couple will give away the plot of IF’s but it won’t spoil anything by saying Krasinski does an excellent Robin Williams impression throughout the movie.Let me know if you are done watching Patch Adams after this film if you haven’t run out of Kleenex yet.I am sure there are plenty more along these lines.
The visual effects used in IF are amazing. They’re flawless the way they should. The CGI illustrations in IF aren’t meant to be photorealistic. Instead, they try to look like cartoons and things drawn by children. This is worth considering because it’s hard to tell IFs from live action actors at some points. Sometimes a film looks so good that you can almost not see the absentness of IFs. Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kamiński (Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan) and visual effects supervisor Chris Lawrence (Gravity, The Martian) remain on top of their game. Towards next year when awards will be given, both of them will be contenders as usual.
IF does have a rocky first act. The initial exposition establishing important elements takes long thus appearing slow paced. Yet everything changes once the fun begins moving fast and furious in an exciting way compared to what has been before it. Bea is now renovating the theme just as we are tiring of sad scenes that depress us all initially about her family; she goes on a rollercoaster ride with Cal too since he becomes involved in nasty business and together they do unmentionable things while having fun which makes him grow up very quickly over a relatively short time span – this story could never be told through another lens than Krasinski’s own eyes would provide us with their view on life where everything seems gloomy unless we are reminded otherwise each day; if only it were sunny forever though….
This would have been better if there was shorter opening edit but maybe less emotional impact for Krasinski overall? There has been much discussion about how Brea should appear throughout production meeting or even during auditions when choices made between different actresses who tried out for role had changed several times but eventually they settled down upon one person among few candidates whom everyone agreed instantly would fit into part perfectly well without any further hesitation – Cailey Fleming herself! It would remind one of such tenets as Jodie Foster and Haile Steinfeld. This is a lot of compliments and it’s a good sign for the actress’ future in movies.
IF has one particular aspect that’s sort of eerie. She goes out into New York City alone at night. Afterwards, she makes friends with an older man who is a complete stranger only to go off with him unsupervised. This is really dumb and dangerous behavior for any child whatsoever because they should not act like Bea despite her being very brave. It’s a reality that stings when you say it aloud too.
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