If: Maybe We All Need Just An Other Sixth Sense

MOVIE INFO:

From writer and director John Krasinski, IF is about a girl who discovers that she can see everyone’s imaginary friends — and what she does with that superpower — as she embarks on a magical adventure to reconnect forgotten IFs with their kids.

REVIEW:

IF has a lot of invisible beings being seen by its 12-year-old female lead, all of them imaginary to others, but none dead in a Sixth Sense way. IF is about the friends of the imaginary kind, the ones that help children with the troubles of growing up. The sad part is that being a grown up means that you stop seeing them when you start living for yourself.

The IFs never really vanish, they just live a subterranean retirement at Memory Lane Retirement Home franchises under other happy friendly places, mostly old amusement parks. Here the New York IFs live under Coney Island. This prompts many stroll through cameos from Maya Rudolph, Sam Rockwell, Louis Gossett Jr., Phoebe Waller Bridgr, Jon Stewart, George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Amy Schumer, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Blake Lively, Matthew Rhys, Awkwafina, Keegan-Michael Key and Brad Pitt voicing a pink alligator, a superhero dog, a worn teddy bear, a butterfly, a robot, astronaut, a glass of ice water, a gummy bear, a unicorn, a flower, a cat in an octopus costume, a ghost, a soap bubble, some green slime and an invisible blob. They take up a lot of plot and screen time just saying hello or commiserating in group therapy whines. Most of the story telling is devoted to preteen Bea (Cailey Fleming) helping a grouch named Cal (Ryan Reynolds) play matchmaker for all the lonely kid-less IFs.

IF was directed by John Krasinski with a very light and whimsical touch. There’s no existential crises. No angst over the IFs being consigned to forever erasure. Just hijinks and palling around.

Bea having gone through the sixth sense phase with her mother’s death, and probably facing it again with her cheerfully and optimistically yet mysteriously ill father (Krasinski), and her doddering grandmother (Fiona Shaw) watching Harvey, the one with Jimmy Stewart, on endless rerun, is ultimately relieved that she’s not seeing dead people, just the imaginary nonsense of the universal loony tunes of existence.

IF is a family film. The big twist between Bea and Cal is easy enough for the over fives to figure out and declare with a spoiler’s glee to the amused parents going through the feels of the final touching reunions. This is the kind of film where Krasinski’s goofy dad literally wears a heart on his sleeve. It just asks us to use our imaginations to see the child inside.