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Movie Review: IF

Mike Tyrkus
Ryan Reynolds, Steve Carell, and Cailey Fleming in "IF."

Ryan Reynolds, Steve Carell, and Cailey Fleming in "IF."

Writer/director John Krasinski’s new film, IF, explores the worlds of childhood, adulthood, and the imaginations that connect the two. Unfortunately, a heavier-than-expected narrative may turn off some of what proves to be one of the rare family films that explores what it means to be a family and how to keep one together.

When Bea (Cailey Fleming) discovers that she can see other people’s imaginary friends (or IFs), she is enlisted as an agent designated with reconnecting forgotten IFs with their real kids. Cal (Ryan Reynolds), a mysterious resident in one of the rooms in the building that Bea’s grandmother (Fiona Shaw) lives in, takes her on as his “sort of” apprentice in the IF reuniting business. From there it becomes apparent that Bea has a knack for this sort of thing and the pair attempt to reunite as many grown-ups with their forgotten IFs as possible.

Following 2018’s A Quiet Place and the 2020 sequel A Quiet Place II, director John Krasinski, as he did with A Quiet Place II, works from a script he has written. While the story may not be as tight and compact as his previous outings, it is a thought-provoking and inventive treatise on growing up too soon under difficult circumstances. What is perhaps most detrimental to the film is the expectation that it will play more as a family film than anything else. There is a part of it that does so extremely well, but there is a bit more at stake here than a simple adventure yarn. If the film manages to draw you in from the beginning, you will likely find yourself enthralled until the end.

Although Ryan Reynolds is his usual affable self in the role of Cal, helping Bea along on her voyage of discovery of sorts – and Krasinski does a fine job as Bea’s father – it is Fleming’s performance as Bea that makes or breaks the film. Fortunately, she proves up to the task and succeeds in stealing several scenes from costar Reynolds along the way.

The cast is filled with the talented likes of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Steve Carell, and the late Louis Gossett Jr. as various IFs assigned to various children. These players give the numerous IFs character traits that may have been missing in the hands of different performers. As Cal and Bea work to reconnect IFs with their now older “children,” all the performers are afforded individual opportunities to steal the scenes they are in.

Although there may be portions of director John Krasinski’s latest film, IF, that portend to skew towards a family-friendly type of children’s film, there is a bit more going on here than a simple tale of forgotten imaginary friends. This is a story about reconnecting family members with one another and with the imaginations they may have lost as they grew into adulthood, so it would be best to keep such information in mind and temper expectations accordingly.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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