IF is a fantasy comedy film written and directed by John Krasinski.
Some spoilers along the way.
“IF” is short for “imaginary friend” and the story is about what happens to IFs when the kid who imagined them into existence grows up.
Our story’s focus is on Bea, a 12 year old girl staying with her grandmother Margaret while her dad is in the hospital awaiting heard surgery. It’s the same hospital where her mother died of cancer years before. She may only be 12 years old but she is quick to remind anyone that she is not a kid anymore. Well, with one parent dead and another one who might die, it’s enough to make a 12 year feel older than their years.
Then weird stuff starts to happen.
Bea sees some strange creatures lurking about: a large shapeless purple furball, something that looks like a butterfly. Bea tracks them to an apartment above where her grandmother lives. The furball (Blue*) and the butterfly (Blossom) live with a dude named Cal. They are IFs, imaginary friends created by kids who have now grown up and no longer need them.
*Yes, the furball is purple. Turns out his kid was color blind.
Cal is working with Ifs to place them with new children as their original children have grown up and forgotten them.
Bea agrees to help them.
Cal takes Bea to Memory Lane Retirement Home, a retirement community for IFs housed underneath a swing ride in Coney Island. Here Bea meets even more IFs. It is here that Bea looks to change Cal’s mission, from placing IFs with new children to reuniting them with the people who imagined them into existence in the first place.
Bea has an opportunity to test this idea with her grandmother. Bea finds a picture of Margaret as a young dancer and recognizes Blossom in the background of the picture. Blossom was her grandmother's IF. Playing one of her grandmother's records inspires Margaret to dance and she remembers Blossom. Both Margaret and Blossom began to glow from the memory.
Bea finds Jeremy who originally dreamed up Blue. Now a grown man, he’s about to make a major business presentation and he’s nervous as hell. Triggering a sense memory (a nearby box of freshly baked croissants), Jeremy remembers Blue and is filled with confidence as he enters the meeting.
Then things go pear shaped for Bea’s dad. Followed by a virtual army of IFs, Bea rushes to her dad’s hospital room where he is unconscious. Holding his hand, Bea tells her father a story about how she was pushing herself to act like a grown-up when she is just a child who still needs her father.
He wakes up and they hug each other.
When Bea goes outside his hospital room, all of the IFs who followed her are gone.
The apartment above her grandmother’s is not an apartment but a storage room.
Later when her dad is released from the hospital and Bea is getting ready to go back home, she comes across a old crayon drawing her mother, her father, herself and a clown she called… “Calvin”.
Cal was her IF all along!
Bea rushes upstairs and the storage room is now an apartment once more populated by IFs including Cal who welcomes her with open arms.
Awww!
The film ends with scenes of Cal reuniting other IFs with their now grown up creators.
IF is a sweet movie with an imaginative concept but I can see why the film did not find an audience when it was in theaters this spring. Yeah, it seems like it's made for kids with with the colorful odd IFs running around but other than those visuals there is not a lot to engage kids.
It seems the crux of the movie is aimed squarely at those adults who are nostalgic for the innocent magic of childhood imagination. There is a certain melancholy that hangs over the film.
Of course that's understandable as Bea who has lost one parent must cope with the possibility of losing another one. Melancholy is built into the movie's DNA, despite the otherwise whimsical premise.
IF exists in some ethereal realm between a kid's movie and a film for grown ups. I think IF is a good movie for what it is even if we're not quite sure what exactly it is.
Ryan Reynolds plays Cal in IF and he's back in theaters again this weekend with Deadpool and Wolverine.
Which I won't be seeing.
It's not really Andrea's thing and I don't want to see it alone.
Maybe if I bring my IF.
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Movies? I've seen a lot of them and I will be back with another Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post next Saturday.
Meanwhile, remember to be good to one another.
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