Movie Review: IF

I’m sure that it can be very challenging to come up with the right way to market a movie. You don’t want to give too much away but you want to show enough to draw people in, while also making sure to frame the film in a way that appeals to as wide an audience as possible. Sometimes though the marketing department can wildly misrepresent the content of a movie, cutting the trailer in a way that makes it look like something very different. This usually works against the audience, leaving them feeling misled and ripped off, but this can work against the film too, depriving it of the viewers who would be most likely to appreciate it for what it actually is. I think this may explain why writer / director John Krasinski’s IF wound up being so poorly received.

Sold as a quip-filled Ryan Reynolds comedy, IF is very much not that for most of its run time. Instead, what we get is a sweet story of a girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) entering young adulthood while dealing with lingering grief over the loss of her mother as her father (Krasinski) is about to undergo major surgery himself. Hardly the setup for a non-stop laugh riot.

As her dad is booked into the hospital she is sent to stay with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) in her apartment, a place Bea has fond memories of having stayed before. She is given a surprising amount of latitude to come and go as she pleases and one night notices a strange figure darting around the building. After some sleuthing on the streets of New York at night (?!) she learns that the figure is what is known as an IF, aka Imaginary Friend, and that its name is Blossom (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge). It resides in an apartment on the top floor of her grandmother’s building with fellow IF Blue (voiced by Steve Carell) and a human named Cal (Ryan Reynolds), who is trying to find them new children since their old ones have grown up and no longer need them.

Bea sees this as a good distraction from everything else going on in her life and volunteers to help, only to learn that there are many more IFs and they reside in a special retirement home located beneath the rides at Coney Island. She is undeterred however and dives headfirst into the task, though she soon learns that she can only avoid reckoning with her own issues for so long.

Fleming is perfectly cast as a girl torn between conflicting “childish” and “grown-up” interests and impulses who is forced to contend with one great loss and another potential one at a young age. She ably pulls us along from one scene to the next as she goes through grief, concern, wonder, and joy, not necessarily in that order. Reynolds is largely playing the same character he always does, though with a lot less ad-libbing, and it works well here, adding some necessary levity. It’s a shame though that nearly every comedic bit was in the trailer, robbing them of their full impact. Krasinski and Shaw delight as Bea’s family, instantly endearing themselves to viewers, as does Alan Kim as Benjamin, a young boy she befriends in the hospital. The extensive voice cast also do excellent work, and while most only get a few lines, it can be fun to try to guess which A-list actor is behind each one.

The amount of high-caliber talent at work here basically guaranteed that this would at least be a watchable movie. Michael Giacchino’s score might be his most charming since Up and renowned cinematographer Janusz Kaminski frames everything beautifully. It feels like Krasinski’s choice of Kaminski was very intentional to achieve the tone he was looking for as well. Having long worked with Stephen Spielberg, he helps the movie achieve the overall vibe of the legendary director’s most memorable work.

Krasinski’s script may lean a little too far into Spielberg’s most saccharine impulses for some viewers, but it worked well for me, hitting me squarely in the nostalgic feels. Sure, it’s all a little hokey at times, but there are truly magical moments throughout leading to an emotional payoff that should moisten the eyes of even the most hardened among us. One scene in particular of a woman recalling her dreams of being a dancer set to Khachaturian’s Spartacus is one of the most memorably moving I’ve seen this year.

It might have been nice to see a few more creative IFs in the background, virtually every plot point is easily predictable, and the notion that we should all try to retain at least some of our childlike wonder and bravery isn’t exactly groundbreaking. But these all feel like minor quibbles when you’ve finished watching a movie that makes you feel as much as this one does. Following the success of A Quiet Place with this movie, Krasinski has proven that he’s no one trick pony and is certainly a filmmaker worth paying attention to. ★★★★