IF (2024) * *

 

Directed by:  John Krasinski

Starring:  Cailey Fleming, Ryan Reynolds, John Krasinski, Fiona Shaw, Steve Carell (voice), Emily Blunt (voice), Louis Gossett, Jr. (voice), Matt Damon (voice), Awkwafina (voice), Blake Lively (voice)

IF is curiously morose and sad for a children-oriented comedy.   It's more often than not that we hear Michael Giacchino's heavily dramatic score swelling so we're cued to choke up.  IF (short for Imaginary Friend) isn't much fun, hanging on a threadbare plot which doesn't deliver a satisfying payoff.  There are terrific talents involved, most of them as voices of the animated IF's, but the human characters are lost in the mess.

The more IF tries to explain its purpose, the more confusing it becomes.  The movie starts off on a sad note, with Bea (Fleming) losing her mother to cancer and her father soon hospitalized with a heart condition and pending surgery.  Bea moves into a Victorian-style apartment building with her grandmother (Shaw), and goes exploring when she hears bumps in the night from the floor above.  She sees an imaginary character and soon learns she and numerous imaginary friends are housed in the apartment above with Cal (Reynolds), a human, looking after them.  Well, he's actually in charge of finding the IF's new children to attach themselves to once their previous children have grown up and forgotten them.

Bea soon is made a believer when she and Cal visit a "retirement home" for IF's located in a secret dwelling under Coney Island.  It is here where IF takes us on a trippy tour of the home with CGI gone mad and the audience losing its way, ending in a performance of Tina Turner's Better Be Good to Me by Bea and the IF's.  Bea is game for IF, as she has to put up with the breakneck changes in mood and plot.  First, she's in an adventure trying to match IF's with new kids, while also trying to match IF's with the adult versions of the kids they used to hang with.  What exactly is Bea's mission?  Bea also has to fit in visits to her father in the hospital, who performs pranks and encourages his daughter to embrace her childhood.  Too late.  Bea is involved in a movie entirely too grown up for her.  

Reynolds is missing his charm in IF.  He looks like he'd rather be someplace else, or he's just as confused as we are about the whole enterprise.  I have to wonder why IF chooses to go the depressing route it does.  There is a pall over the movie, one which even the lighter scenes can't penetrate.