Because Ryan Reynolds is in IF, I expected a different crowd than the one that greeted me when I walked into to the theater.  I thought there would be more young adults.  If you can count me as one (which I do not think I qualify anymore), then I might have been the only person in that age bracket.  Actually, the first people I saw were a pair of elderly ladies sitting in the special needs row.  Then, when I looked up towards my seat (I usually sit in the back and/or off to the side), I saw several children.  It appeared that I misread the trailer for this film.  I guess it should have been obvious.  After all, the main character, Bea (Cailey Fleming), is a young girl, and the movie is about imaginary friends, hence the acronym title.  While I am typically not a fan of such abbreviations, I figured Reynolds’ brand of sarcastic humor would make of what I originally thought it would be: something a little more adult, anyway.  I am, on the whole, fine with what I got, particularly with how heartwarming it is in the end.  There are also some great connections to Faith to be found, even if they border on blasphemy.  Still, if there is one thing I was right about from the previews, it is the plot twist, but I will get to that in a moment.

Before we begin seeing all the Ifs through Bea’s eyes (which should be your first clue), we are shown that she once had a loving mother (Catharine Daddario) to go along with her father (John Krasinski).  After we get through the opening credits, though, we see that something has happened since Bea was a small.  She enters her grandmother’s (Fiona Shaw) apartment alone and apprehensive.  Bea is feeling like she needs to be more grown-up as she goes with her grandmother to the hospital.  Dad is there about to undergo a major surgery, though he promises her that he will be okay.  They talk about the memories of how her mother had passed away in a similar setting.  The one thing that Bea’s father does not want her to do is despair, but his attempts at humor, while funny, fall on the ears of someone who is trying to act older.  At the same time, she meets Benjamin (Alan Kim), a boy in another room recuperating from a few broken bones.  His positive attitude is noticeable.  Because of his cheerfulness, when Bea comes the next day with flowers for her father, she leaves one for Benjamin.  This is not the only encounter she has while staying with her grandmother while her dad awaits an operation.  One evening, while walking back from the store, she sees something prowling about in the shadows.  Curious as to what it could be, she follows the footsteps up to the top floor where she can hear arguing on the other side of a door.  The male voice, which belongs to Calvin (Ryan Reynolds), gruffly tells her to go away.  The next night, though, she hears noises upstairs and goes to investigate.  She makes it out the door in time to see Blossom (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and Calvin walking down the street.  She follows them to a nearby house where Calvin climbs into a second story window.  He is there to find Blue (voiced by Steve Carell), a cheerful but giant purple creature that is trying to win over a new child.  Since this has evidently not worked, Calvin demands that Blue return to his flat, and this is when Bea sees them.  To be more precise, she faints when she lays eyes on Blossom.  She regains consciousness in Calvin’s place with Blue’s help.  Blossom explains that he has been assisting other IFs whose child had forgotten about them. Once Bea has recovered from the shock of having what was once thought to be imaginary in plain sight, she decides that she, too, would like to be a part of this mission.  Though Calvin is resistant to this idea at first, he eventually relents, grudgingly taking her to the IF retirement home located in Coney Island.  The odd menagerie of whimsical beings all seem to know Calvin.  He wants Bea to avoid being distracted on their way to see Lewis (voiced by Louis Gossett Jr.), but her arrival causes a stir.  It is Lewis that suggests to Bea that it is her imagination that controls the setting, and Calvin looks on in horror as she reshapes the home.  Witnessing how much these cast-aside IFs pine for the person to whom they used to be attached gives her an idea.  Wanting to give hope to the IFs, and to Benjamin, she begins interviewing the various beings as to their qualifications to potentially be Benjamin’s companion.  Those who seem like they might work out come one-by-one into his room, but he is unable to spot any of them.  Bea is discouraged until she comes up with a new idea: reuniting the IFs with their old friends.  It comes while having pizza with her grandmother.  Bea takes a closer look at a photograph of her grandma as a young dancer.  In the corner of the image is Blossom.  Putting on a record of an old ballet, Bea surreptitiously watches her grandmother move elegantly with the music.  Blossom glows from being touched by the memory.  Her next attempt is with Jeremy (Bobby Moynihan), who had conjured Blue.  He is found as he is about to have a job interview.  At the outset, the interaction does not go well, with Jeremy spilling his coffee in his nervousness instead of noticing Blue.  Yet, she persists and is able to witness a moment when Jeremy remembers Blue, giving him the confidence he needs for his presentation.  Returning home from this triumph, she is greeted by her grandmother, who takes them to the hospital.  Bea’s father has had his surgery.  Tearfully sitting bedside, she begs him to open his eyes because he is all she has.  He does so, but this seems to mean that she can no longer see the IFs.  It is while packing up the car to leave grandma’s that she finds a picture she drew of her family at Coney Island, and of a clown named Calvin.  If you have not guessed it already, it should be obvious now: Calvin is an IF.  She returns to his apartment, which is really just a storage space, and thanks him, getting one last glimpse of the IFs before the film ends.

I will confess to having my heartstrings pulled while watching IF.  However, it also has the feeling of perhaps needing a few more drafts to the script before filming.  I do not necessarily wish to impugn the movie because we need more like it.  I do not care if it is schmaltzy.  It works wonderfully, so long as you do not think about it too much.  And therein is my problem.  According to its logic, every kid has an imaginary friend.  Since it takes place in New York city, should there not be an army of millions of magical beings crowding every shot?  I also do not get how, as seen in the post-credits bits, Calvin can continue to bring IFs back together with their persons if he only exists in Bea’s mind?  Then again, Calvin is based on a clown Bea had seen as a child at Coney Island.  If that is the case, is this the real person that was the clown who is also about to see imaginary friends?  These are ideas that likely escaped the attention of the average nine-year-old watching the movie, but I cannot help but give them some thought.  It is why I say that if they had spent a little more time crafting the story, it might have been really clever.  The biggest evidence that it lacks the overall smarts is with Calvin.  If you have ever seen A Beautiful Mind (2001), you will understand this perspective.  In it, John Nash (Russell Crowe), sees people who are not there because of a form of schizophrenia that causes him to hallucinate.  If you watch carefully, you will notice that none of these imaginary people have any interactions with the real world.  Between that, the way Calvin dresses, and some other context clues, it is evident from the beginning of IF that he is a product of Bea’s mind.  It is not a bad character, mind you, but the twist is somewhat telegraphed.

As hinted at before, though IF is predictable, I did have an emotional reaction.  At the same time, it is something of which to be leery.  It has to do with the idea of an imaginary friend and the way some people can construe Faith.  Apropos of this specific weekend, Sunday being Pentecost, we have creatures that are seemingly everywhere but you cannot see them, at least for adults.  I bring up Pentecost because it marks the day that Jesus ascended into Heaven.  In other words, we could no longer physically experience Him.  Scripture will tell you that this was a necessary step so that Revelation could be experienced around the world, not just in the Holy Land.  The entire history of the Catholic Church owes its existence to this fact, which is why we also refer to this day as the Church’s birthday.  Yet, I cannot emphasize enough that God is real.  He is not an imaginary friend.  This point needs to be underscored because a lot of the language used in the movie can sound similar to how we conceive of the way the Holy Spirit works, which was poured out on the world following Pentecost.  It is summed up when Calvin tells a tearful Bea at the end that he will always be there for her.  God’s Advocate is always there for us, when we lose a parent, are facing a difficult job interview, desire to reconnect to our past, or anything else we need.  This is all great, but where the overlap becomes absurd is if you start believing that God is a giant purple monster, or an anthropomorphic toasted marshmallow.  I am all for experiencing God with a childlike wonder as the Bible calls us to do.  At the same time, Faith is not a make-your-own-adventure scheme.  Anyone versed in Ignatian spirituality will tell you that the imagination plays a part in how we can relate to God.  We need to be careful, though, that it is not being used by the enemy to draw us away from God.

I guess the point of what I am trying to say about IF is that it could have used a little more thought.  As a Catholic, of course, I would have shied away from anything that might suggest that our imaginations need know no limits.  It is rather that our imaginations should be channeled for good, which Bea does accomplish in many ways.  As such, call this a mixed review.