IF

I eagerly anticipated seeing this movie. I guess it's how life goes. I didn't really premeditate going to see The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare or The Fall Guy, but I was looking forward to this movie for weeks. I had an unqualified blast at those other two movies, but I didn't enjoy IF as much as I expected to. It was all right. It made me laugh and, a few times, get choked up. But it was definitely a case of the trailers making a movie look better than it really is. I suppose that's what they're supposed to do.

I'd like to mention, while I remember, that the trailers that I saw before the feature started included one for The Wild Robot, and I'm excited to see that. Which, based on this movie-going experience, perhaps isn't a sign of emotional wisdom in me. I could tell what was being advertised from almost the first shot in the trailer, and I was pumped. There was also a trailer for Sight, a movie about a surgeon trying to restore a little girl's vision. It was the second trailer I've seen for it, and I appreciated it because it was brief and left a lot to the imagination, whereas the first trailer was basically the whole movie. So, obviously, not all trailers do their job equally well.

All right. IF stands for Imaginary Friend, and in this movie, a 12-year-old girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) can see other kids' Imaginary Friends. While she's staying in her grandma's apartment building to await the results of her widowed dad's heart surgery, she encounters an upstairs neighbor who is trying, without much success, to match IFs forgotten by their original kids with new kids. Bea joins the effort, getting to know the wacky residents of a retirement home for IFs and learning to explore the world of pure imagination. (And while that phrase is in your memory cache, doesn't the musical theme that runs through this movie remind you of "The Candy-Man Can"?)

Some of Bea's successes and failures really are poignant. Some of the emotional patches she goes through are quite powerful. The imagery is brilliant, and Ryan Reynolds (as the neighbor from upstairs) supplies a certain sarcastic wit that lightens the tone when needed. The imagery is spectacular, and certain scenes are achingly beautiful, like the one where grandma reconnects with her memories of being a ballet dancer. The cast is also pretty good, with director John Krasinski playing Bea's dad, Fiona Shaw (lately Harry Potter's Aunt Petunia) as the grandma and a cast of voice actors (as IFs) that includes Steve Carell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Louis Gossett Jr., Awkwafina, Emily Blunt, George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Matt Damon, Bill Hader, Richard Jenkins, Keegan-Michael Key, Blake Lively, Christopher Meloni, Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph, Amy Schumer and Jon Stewart. There's also a whimsical "and introducing" credit in the closing titles that'll reward those who stay to watch the cast scroll by with a mild chuckle.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Bea lets her imagination run wild at the IF retirement home. (2) Grandma relives a moment of her girlhood dreams of being a ballerina. (3) Bea's dad tries to prank her with knotted sheets going out his hospital window.

I'm not a starred-type reviewer. I've openly admitted that when I do book reviews, I consider myself more of a book booster than a critic; if I have to assign a star rating, a book almost has to disappoint me on some level to get less than four stars, and I think I'm pretty liberal in my distribution of five-star ratings even though I try to reserve that last star for books that I'm super thrilled about. Even less do I know how to rate movies, but I wouldn't give this one the full five stars and I'm not sure how many stars I'd take away, or really, why. I guess it was well made and deeply felt, but it didn't fully give me joy. Sometimes I was a little uncomfortable with it, maybe because of the amount of time Bea spends with the grown-up guy upstairs; and though there's a plot twist toward the end that make me feel stupid to admit that (and if you're a smart cat, you probably know what it is without my needing to tell you), it still leaves me feeling a little weird. Ultimately, I just don't know what position this movie is taking on the fate of IFs who outlive their kids' memory of them. I guess I was expecting the story to go in a different direction, and so the movie didn't quite live up to my imagination. Also, it has some structural issues that left me squirming at the end. Issues like not knowing when it's really over and just ending there. Bottom line: It was pretty good, and I enjoyed it, but although I was ready to fall in love with it, I didn't.