Movie Review: IF (2024) seen in theatres

Suitable for all ages, cartoon monsters

This movie follows a young girl named Elizabeth, (who is referred to as Bea throughout the film,) who is tasked by one of her imaginary friends to find new children for other retired imaginary friends after she discovers that they have become depressed after their assigned children have grown up and forgotten about them. The imaginary friend named Calvin, (played by Ryan Reynolds,) is the one in charge of them.

The movie opens with a voice over from Bea who says that her mother always wanted her to write a story that would be unforgettable as her mother knew she had a vivid imagination. As the voice over is in progress, clips from Bea’s childhood are shown during certain holidays as well as things she used to do with her mother in the years leading up to the present day. Eventually, Bea is shown in the present day visiting a hospital where her father has some sort of illness though he appears healthy and does not show signs of being ill. He enters his room in the hospital and is attached to a fluid bag, though he jokes around with Bea and dances with it pretending it’s a woman. Though it is uncertain what has happened to Bea’s mother, it is assumed that she may be deceased as people throughout the film talk about her in the past tense, “your mother loved this,” your mother loved you,” ETC. Her mother also does not appear in the film.

Bea is shown to live with her grandmother in a downstairs apartment of a house. One night, she over hears noise coming from the upstairs apartment and as she does not have many friends seeks to find some from the upstairs apartment. As she knocks on the door, she is told by Calvin to go away despite her explaining her intentions to make a possible new friend.

As she is walking on the street one night, she sees Calvin and an old stick figure type person entering a child’s room where a big purple creature named Blue, (played by Steve Carell,) comes out of the closet as he intends to be that child’s new imaginary friend. A conversation ensues between Calvin and Blue, (the subject matter of which I cannot fully remember but I think it was something along the lines of Blue stating his intentions to be that child’s new imaginary friend and Calvin saying it’s not a good idea.) The shock of what Bea saw was enough to cause her to pass out.

Bea awakens the next morning in the apartment and questions the crew on who they are and what’s going on. When Calvin finally explains to her that he needs to find new children for each of the imaginary friends he is in charge of, she offers to help citing the fact that she is a child and knows what children want in terms of imaginary friends. Despite apprehension from Calvin, he eventually agrees and takes her to a place within the confines of a carnival ride where most of the retired and depressed imaginary figures have taken up residence in the absence of their now grown up children.

She first tries to set a little boy named Benjamin, (whom she met earlier in the film in the hospital,) up with the perfect imaginary friend. When none of the imaginary friends impresses him, she opts to try and reunite them with their old children despite them being adults.

Through a series of events, each imaginary friend is reunited with their children as adults as they attempt to boost their confidence as each adult is shown to have problems in their personal and professional lives. This causes all of the depression from the imaginary friends to go away as they now have purpose.

Bea returns to her house where her grandmother is seen in a state of panic. She says that she was out with friends where her grandmother says her father’s illness and condition has worsened to the point where he is now in a hospital bed and clinging to life.

She rushes to the hospital where all of the imaginary friends are seen in the hallway. She finds her father in his hospital bed as he is barely conscious. As she bids a proper farewell to him, she holds his hand and tells him the story that her parents wanted her to tell from the beginning of the film. She says that despite her growing up, her love for imaginary friends has kept her from forgetting about those around her, (I cannot remember the story in full but it was something heart felt.) The emotion of the story was enough for her father to return to his normal self as Bea breathes a sigh of relief.

She is then seen in the present day where her father is getting ready to move with her out of their grandmother’s house. As she goes upstairs to see Calvin, she finds that nobody is in the room and realizes close her eyes so that all of the imaginary friends can be real again. After closing her eyes, she sees the gang standing before her as Calvin, (who she remembers as a clown from earlier in the film,) appears as a clown. She opens the book to find the drawings of the characters that she has seen including Blue and Calvin and the rest of the characters.

The movie ends with Bea and her father driving away and the stick figure who has been reunited with her child who is now a grown up and that person is Bea’s grandmother.

This was a really confusing movie to me. I couldn’t tell who or what was real and I couldn’t follow it. For those children who love to eat McDonald’s food, they may recognize Blue as being similar to Grimace from the McDonald’s franchise. Lately I’ve seen too many movies that either don’t take place in the present day or have characters that appear normal but it turns out they’re anything but normal. This makes it really hard to blog those types of movies.

Also it didn’t help that I had an unwelcome and unfriendly companion at the movies with me….a sore back. At times throughout this movie, my back pain began to act up causing me to lose focus on the movie hence making it more difficult to create a proper blog. As a matter of fact, I was in so much pain as I was watching this movie that it almost didn’t even get a blog because I was too tired to write it. However, I chose to do so in the end as I made a promise to mom that I would blog each movie I watch to the best of my ability once my site was up and running.

Honestly, I was sort of expecting the plot of this movie to be a little different. Previews for this movie suggest that Blue was the only imaginary friend in the film which leads me to believe the plot should have been that Bea finds an imaginary friend in Blue, (who can still appear as he did in the film,) and must find a way to prove his existence to those around her who believe he does not exist. Though this was a proper storyline for this film, I feel they may have changed it due to it being too obvious. I’ve actually seen other movies like this where a child finds an imaginary friend who he/she can only see and must prove to others, (family, friends and even school bullies,) that the being exists despite objections from those who don’t believe her.

If they would have gone with the obvious plot for this movie, which would have been that Blue was the main imaginary friend, a funny plot twist would have been that Bea found him at McDonald’s during a trip there with her parents as he was playing the Grimace character and must find a way to return him to the restaurant without her parents knowledge after she is grounded for making up the ridiculous story that he exists.

There were too many other characters in this movie for me to be able to remember all of their names. However, Blue and Calvin stood out to me hence the reason why they are the only ones mentioned by name in this review.

This movie was good for a night out I suppose. However, if you have trouble following certain movies, I wouldn’t recommend this one.

Movie rating: 3 out of 10