By Leah Smith, Entertainment Editor
SPOILERS AHEAD
I’m not a kid anymore.
I recognize that. While some movies marketed towards children and families can appeal to all audiences, such as this year’s ultra popular installment of the “Inside Out” series or other Disney classics such as “Frozen”and “Coco”, not all of them will hit that mark, even if they try their best to do just that. In such situations, adults may be left wondering where the appeal is for them (see this year’s “Saving Bikini Bottom” or “The Garfield Movie” for examples of just that).
Such is the case with John Krasinski’s ambitious live action/animation hybrid IF. The plot centers around Bea (Cailey Fleming), a 12-year-old girl trying her best to cope with the loss of her mother to cancer AND her father’s impending surgery while she lives with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) in New York. What is that surgery you may wonder? It’s not exactly clear… It appears that it may have something to do with his heart, but this is never explained, as with a lot of things in this movie. In the process, she meets Cal (Ryan Reynolds), a neighbor of her grandmother, and discovers that she has the ability to see whimsical beings known as IF’s, who are the imaginary friends of… well, everyone. The children who imagined them up have all since grown up, and it becomes Bea’s job to either find new children for these creatures to pair with or reunite them with their old children who have since become working adults.
This movie was NOT well received by critics upon release. The film currently has a 50% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a 6.5/10 on IMDB, and a dismal 46% on Metacritic. While audience scores seem to be more favorable, there was also plenty of social media discussion that did not paint the film in the most positive light. After hearing a bit of this criticism, I took advantage of a free screening by UNC Pembroke.
My conclusion? Its fine… but not much else.
The biggest flaw this movie seems to have is its narrative. It has a tendency to set up really big moments for a payoff that leaves plenty to be desired. One sequence that comes to mind is a moment when Bea visits her father in the hospital. Throughout the film, Bea regularly brings her father flowers as a sign of well wishes. The first time we see this, there is a lot of buildup to the moment where she finally sees him- she walks through the halls between doctors and nurses, meets a young boy named Benjamin recovering from a plethora of injuries related to his clumsiness, and arrives at her father’s room to find an elaborate prank set by her dad to make it seem as if he’s escaped the hospital. When she finds him hiding in a closet, she gives him the flowers and then just… leaves? There is little interaction between them in this moment, or during the rest of the film either, leaving me wondering what the point of this drawn-out sequence in the hospital was really intended to do.
Another moment comes much later in the film as Bea has fully assumed her responsibility as this buffer between the If’s and their former kids. It is revealed that Blossom, a friendly butterfly inspired creature played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (one of the film’s standout acting performances), was imagined by none other than Bea’s grandmother Margaret back when she was a child and a dancer. A bit of context: IFs can only be seen by those who remember them. In an effort to get her grandmother to remember Blossom, Bea plays an old record Margaret used to dance to when she was a child. As Margaret recognizes the music, a triumphant moment occurs as she begins to dance along to her old number, and Blossom begins to glow, seemingly indicating that Margaret could be starting to remember her. But then… it just ends. Margaret never turns around to see Blossom standing right there, the whole point of her being there for this in the first place, and we never get true confirmation that Margaret remembers her until the film’s final scene. It’s a rather frustrating moment- why would they create this enormous buildup for such an important to Bea, Cal, and all of the If’s all to just leave it unresolved for a whole act? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me and puts a sour taste on what started out as a really touching moment.
Which brings me to Ryan Reynolds’s character Cal. Ryan Reynolds is one of those actors who exists very well within a certain type of role- a snarky, sarcastic comedic relief. He’s played it masterfully in the “Deadpool” series of films, 2019’s underrated “Detective Pikachu” and 2017’s “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”. This character doesn’t exactly suit him. While the sarcasm is there, as with most Reynolds characters, Cal is far too serious of a person for this, which is strange coming from a guy who apparently used to be a clown. He seemingly can’t decide if he wants to either be serious to the point of almost having no hope or snarky and sarcastic, making jokes about people. In an attempt to make this character complex, the movie just makes him confusing.
Which brings me to the big twist at the end of the movie. It is officially revealed that Cal was Bea’s original If from when she was a child. This would be a really cool reveal if the movie didn’t insist on letting us know quite literally every chance they possibly could. Cal constantly makes comments about knowing Bea from the past without ever alluding to where their relationship came from. This wouldn’t necessarily make things obvious if Reynolds didn’t deliver these lines with the most obvious “I hope she remembers me” disappointment in his voice. This, coupled with all of the nonverbal signs we see (notably the fact that no other human character acknowledges his presence or speaks to him except for Bea), makes the reveal at the end hollow. There are ways to make hints about a twist without completely giving it away from the moment the movie starts to the moment it ends. And that is a point that this film doesn’t seem to understand.
While I definitely do have my drawbacks (and believe me, there was a lot more I could have talked about), this is not as bad of a film as I may lead on. There are some positives that I took away from the film, one of those being the camerawork. There are a lot of really cool shots we see, a notable one we see being when Cal emerges from an ocean (that was originally a pool) in the Memory Lane Retirement Home. There are also a few one-off scenes that do work and provide for charming moments, such as when Bea and one of the If’s we frequently see, an elderly teddy bear named Lewis, walk through Coney Island through an imaginative sequence. The camerawork is fantastic and seeing all the IF’s have fun in the carnival despite their less-than-ideal situation is heartwarming. A sequence which involves Bea and Cal interviewing the more minor IF characters is heartfelt and well edited, and it serves as a great introduction to some of the minor players that creates a few memorable moments and highlights a few of the celebrity cameos sprinkled throughout the film. Ultimately, however, IF is harmed by its ambition. There are a lot of good ideas here, and some of the moments do hit home. Unfortunately, not every idea ends up being truly complete, and there are far too many glaring errors for me to look past. Moments end prematurely, storylines get left unresolved, and the film often creates more questions than answers. While there is certainly appeal for the kids with goofy characters and adorable designs, there isn’t much appeal outside of a fun family movie night.
