REVIEW:
If is an okay movie. They get us through the door with all of their interesting characters, that are shown upfront and in your face on every trailer. But that’s only part of the movie. This is in fact a very human movie, about a girl and her father and grandmother as much as it is about the imaginary characters she comes across. In other words, in many ways it is more for adults than for kids.
The movie is about this thirteen year old girl who has lost her mom to Cancer. And now her father (played by John Krasinsky, the films director,) is sick and in the hospital and in need of surgery. So naturally the girl thinks that he might die too. She goes to live with her grandmother while her father is in the hospital, and it’s while staying in her grandmother’s apartment that she starts meeting these imaginary friends.
Turns out the imaginary friends have a problem. If a kid forgets about them, they just disappear. So a new plot line emerges where she has to help adults remember their imaginary friends. We follow one particular adult, played by SNLs Bobby Moynihan, as he is nervous about a big pitch he is about to make and needs his IF to help give him confidence. This happens to be one of the better sequences in the movie.
What doesn’t work is the world building and all of the questions that are left unanswered. For example, the IFs say that they will disappear if the person who they belonged to forgets about them, but this hasn’t actually happened to any of them yet. So they don’t really know. And there’s nothing to even make them think this. Like none of them are starting to disappear, Back to the Future style, where a part of their body is disappearing, or anything like that. And why is this a problem now, all of a sudden? Like why has this never been a problem before?
If you think too hard about this premise (or even a little hard,) it definitely has holes. But as a light, cute experience, it kind of works. The IF characters themselves are fun and the voice talent her his amazing. We’re talking Matt Damon, George Clooney, Sam Rockwell. There’s a terrific sequence where the girl reimagines the place where all the IFs are living, and the effects go all out on that one, making it a blast. And Ryan Reynolds is pretty good as our main adult on hand, guiding the girl throughout the film. There’s a lot going on in this movie, including what is meant to be a surprise ending that is telegraphed a little too much throughout the film. Still, it’s an enjoyable movie, filled with ideas, with just a few too many questions left unanswered.