Lamar Reviews - "IF" (Airdate 5/24/2024)

When I watched the trailer for IF I laughed out loud. It looked so funny, and I was expecting to laugh the whole movie. What I wasn’t expecting was not just the melancholy feeling, but actually sobbing during this thing.

John Krasinski is a great director, just look at the two Quiet Place movies, both amazing. The combination of Krasinski’s writing and directing, along with Ryan Reynolds and really cute, cuddly creatures, I was thinking this was going to be a big summer hit! It is a little on the slow side, and the story is all over the place.

The lead character is Bea, a 12-year-old girl, played by Cailey Fleming who has been through a lot. It seems she has lost her mom to illness, and she has had to leave childhood behind, now her dad, played by John Krasinski, is in the hospital for surgery.

While her dad is in the hospital Bea is living with her grandmother in the same house full of her childhood memories. She starts seeing a bunch of Imaginary Friends, that’s where the IF comes in, that have been forgotten by their children. She meets Cal, a guy that lives in the apartment upstairs, played by Ryan Reynolds, who can also see the Imaginary Friends. He is trying to pair the IFs with new children. Bea decides to help him.

The message that Krasinski is trying to give us is that the comfort, friendship, and confidence that IFs gave us as children is exactly what we need as adults to get through anxiety, hard times, and grief. It is a really great message for the world we are living in today. The movie is sweet and sentimental, hence the fact I was blubbering all over the place. The problem is the story seems to go around in circles.

The movie is 1 hour and 44 minutes, Rated-PG for a little bit of language, that I didn’t notice.

The effects are great, the creatures are cute and funny, and voiced by a list of Hollywood elite. Krasinski called up a lot of friends, Steve Carrell, Emily Blunt, George Clooney, the late Louis Gossett Jr., Matt Damon, Bill Hader, Bradley Cooper, Blake Lively, Sam Rockwell, Keegan-Michael Key, Maya Rudolph, and Jon Stewart, just to name a few. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt must throw really great parties.

Cailey Fleming, who played Bea, was fantastic. I believe we will be seeing a lot of her down the road, I certainly hope so. 

I was really wanting this to be a great movie. It had a great concept, a good look, a fantastic cast, but even with all of that, you still need a story, even a bad story, that people can follow.

When I wasn’t dozing off, I was crying uncontrollably. It reminded me of the wedding night of my first marriage. Except, I was in the fetal position.  My Score: 2 Buds