IF-John Krasinski’s Whimsical, Charming, But Also Muddled and Directionless Kid’s Film

The heart of IF carries the message of never losing sight of childhood's warmth, comfort, and imagination. From the very beginning, it's clear that John Krasinski wants to make this a whimsical childhood staple, with whimsical music and the golden glow of Janusz Kaminski's cinematography. The film's heart is in the right place, and there is a charm to the cast of imaginary characters, and the A-list voice cast Krasinski managed to get for them. The visual effects on all of the If characters are also spot-on. 

The film is undoubtedly well-made and well-intentioned, but because of Kraskinski's script, it never rises above being a light, charming affair. It's clear Krasinski is in love with this concept of imaginary friends, but he doesn't quite know what to do with it. The film's story feels quite directionless, with the story first being about the protagonist, Bea, with the help of Ryan Reynolds's Cal, helping to find new kids for these imaginary friends to bond with. But that ultimately goes nowhere, and then the film is about Bea helping reunite these Ifs with their original kids and reminding these adult characters of their childhood. But the film then abandons that to make it about these Ifs helping Bea cope with her personal struggles. These are all great directions to take the concept of imaginary friends, but it's hard to fully care about the story or the ideas when it keeps flip-flopping the direction the film takes them. 

The film's concept of Imaginary friends is also needlessly complicated, explaining aspects it doesn't do anything with. Some ifs say they disappear if they find a kid, but we never see this happen. The film also says every kid has an if, but we never see kids interacting with an if aside from Bea. 

It doesn't help that the film has a tonal issue. The film wants to have darker elements to the plot, such as the loss of Bea's mom at the very beginning or Bea's dad's heart complications. But, the film tries too hard not to leave its light, whimsical tone to allow these darker emotional aspects of the plot to resonate. The plotline with the dad specifically never worked for me, as the film never explains or shows that he's genuinely sick. There are vague hints that he's suffering from a "broken heart," but even then, John Krasinski, as Bea's Dad, always acts too light and bubbly for you to get the sense that he's genuinely sick, and because of that, his part of the plot doesn't resonate as much as it could have. Some aspects, particularly Ryan Reynolds's performance, with his dry, snarky acting style, also clash with the film's whimsical tone. 

It all makes for a film that has its charms, is good-natured and well-made, but ultimately doesn't quite know what it wants to be. IF wants to be a whimsical kids' film about imaginary friends, but it doesn't know what to do with this concept, taking it in too many directions and overly muddling and overcomplicating it. IF also wants to be a film about using imagination to cope with traumas or struggles, but the film is too light and whimsical and doesn't go dark enough to commit to such a serious concept for a kid's movie. The film's final message of never losing sight of imagination or the comforting feelings of childhood did leave me feeling warm and fuzzy inside by the end. Still, I couldn't help but feel this film could've been much stronger if it had dug deeper into some of the darker elements, had handled its concept better, or had stuck to a direction to take its creative concept.

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