‘IF’ review: The fun is only in your head

Cailey Fleming’s performance and some fun special effects keep John Krasinski’s IF from being totally forgotten.

John Krasinski’s efforts as director and screenwriter largely consisted of under-the-radar dramedies before the breakout horror thriller A Quiet Place established him as a bankable creative. Never content to take the easy path, Krasinski has decided to pivot directly from a successful horror franchise to mainstream family fare.

Give him a break, the man has kids. Krasinski showed his knack for the lighthearted with his Some Good News webseries in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic (before selling it off which was the better news) but IF still feels like an unexpected turn.

IF centers on Bea (Cailey Fleming), a 12-year-old girl staying with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw) while her father (Krasinski) prepares for a complicated surgery. The last time Bea visited her grandmother was during her mother’s losing battle with cancer, so the girl’s anxieties are high. And despite her father’s best attempts to foster some youthful optimism and imagination in his daughter, Bea is steadfast in the belief she has moved beyond such childish things.

The film’s young lead shines during the more dramatic moments.

A kid believing they don’t need a childhood never lasts long in this genre, so it’s only a matter of time before Bea meets Cal (Ryan Reynolds, who also produced). The former circus clown lives in her grandmother’s apartment building and is trying (and failing) to find new homes for imaginary friends — IFs for short — who have been forgotten as their children have grown up. If that sounds exactly like a certain Cartoon Network show, that’s because it does. Bea quickly gets involved in the rehoming process, though she struggles to remember the time Cal and the IFs claim she spent with them during her mother’s cancer treatment.

The story itself is far from original and most of the runtime is spent racing towards a twist even the film’s youngest viewers should see coming, but Fleming manages an incredibly nuanced performance that elevates the film’s highs and carries the lows.

IF covers heavier emotional topics than many viewers will probably expect, though nothing its young audience won’t be prepared for. And having a gifted talent like Fleming front and center helps the film succeed where another actor could have easily seen it fail.

Amusing character design helps sell the film’s message.

The premise of IF allows for a revolving door of celebrity cameos. Steve Carell and Phoebe Waller-Bridge may play the most prominent IFs but Louis Gossett Jr., Awkafina, Matt Damon, George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Jon Stewart, and Maya Rudolph are just a few of the actors who make appearances in imaginary form. Brad Pitt is also credited, albeit as an invisible character with no lines (presumably a reference to his second-long cameo as an invisible character in Deadpool 2).

But the biggest charm of the supporting cast is the special effects used to bring them to life. There’s nothing particularly new or groundbreaking on display in the technological sense but the character design is an amusing smörgåsbord of various animation styles and anthropomorphized inanimate objects. If IF hopes to get children excited about imagination, the supporting cast will get the job done.

Kransinski doesn’t feel as confident here as he did with his last two films but he’s still clearly invested in the message he’s trying to convey. And with a cast this strong, it’s easy to enjoy the ride for what it is, even if it’s not much.

IF is in theaters now. Watch the trailer here.

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Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.