Paramount+ Fantasy Comedy Is Already Being Forgotten And That’s A Shame

First of all, let me just say how truly amazing it is that John Krasinski can go from writing and directing A Quiet Place to writing and directing IF. These films are so starkly opposed to each other that you’d think they had to be created by different minds.

But Krasinski is somehow able to hold space for the terrifying and the whimsical and not let the two cross. I wasn’t able to take my kids to see IF in theaters, despite all of us being huge fans of both Reynolds and Krasinski, but I’m so glad we were able to catch it streaming. 

IF is a movie about love, loss, and hope. It opens on a twelve-year-old girl, Bea, who loses her mother to cancer. The first scenes are of a happy family, Bea, her dad (Krasinski), and her mom. They laugh, they play, they create art, and they love each other deeply.

We then run through brief scenes of her mother dying of cancer in the hospital. A few years later, a much  more sober Bea accompanies her father to the same hospital, where he’s scheduled to have heart surgery. She’s scared, but she’s steeling herself for what she sees as the inevitable — her father is going to die. 

In these early scenes, IF stands as a movie that reminds us of the frailty of life and the necessity of enjoying it, and each other, while we can. Bea’s dad comforts Bea by telling her that her mother died because she was sick, but that he’s not sick.

He’s broken, and he can be fixed. Chin up, Bea leaves the hospital and heads to the apartment building of her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) in New York City, where she’ll be staying while her father is in the hospital. As she approaches, she spies an animated character resembling a bug of some sort, and she follows it. 

We soon learn that IF stands for Imaginary Friend, and this movie is a story about all the lost imaginary friends whose kids have grown up and forgotten them. Bea meets the bug, Blossom, and the man with her, Cal (Reynolds), who apparently lives in the apartment above Bea’s grandmother.

Cal explains that it’s his job to find new children for the IFs who don’t have a kid, and Bea offers to help. From the beginning, you can tell there’s something special about the bond between Cal and Bea, but you can’t quite place your finger on it. 

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IF is a movie that keeps you guessing. It is also endearing and funny, with scenes rich with silly animated IFs going through interviews with Bea to match them to kids. Here is where we encounter an all-star cast.

Brad Pitt, Steve Carell, Awkwafina, and of course Reynolds’ and Krasinski’s wives, Blake Lively and Emily Blunt star with so many more actors it’s impossible to list them all here and not sound like a roll call. Part of the fun is guessing whose voice you might be hearing as the IFs show up in all shapes, sizes, and personalities. 

The direction of IF is also like a love letter to New York City, with glamorous movie shots that feel at once aged and sparkly. It’s like old cinema magically brought into the present.

Look, IF is not a perfect movie. It gets a bit overcomplicated at times, and the run time is too long for a family fantasy film. But it’s worth a watch and a rewatch to catch all the things you didn’t understand the first time through. Reynolds is a star, as Deadpool & Wolverine are clearly showing, and Cailey Fleming, who plays young Bea, is well on her way to stardom herself.