IF (2024) review

With her father (Krasinski) in the hospital (suffering from an undisclosed illness) and her mother having passed away from cancer, young Bea (Cailey Fleming) has an encounter with her neighbor Cal (Ryan Reynolds), who has a peculiar job: he gathers a group of animated "imaginary friends" - which include furry beast Blue (voiced by Steve Carell), ol' time-y butterfly Blossom (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and an English unicorn (Emily Blunt) - and "reunites" them with the adults that "left them behind" as they aged.  You can chuck this pricey project into the dumpster heap of Psychologically Unhealthy projects: the first twenty minutes contain nothing but shameless pleas for pity points, and the movie tries (and fails) to make the argument that the sufferings of life could be lessened (and joy would be increased) if grown-ups just embraced non-existent fantasy figures (as a result of overly active minds).  Some of the creatures are kind of cute, like a talking glass of ice water (Bradley Cooper), a fitness-oriented banana (Bill Hader), a faceless detective (Christopher Meloni) and a floating superhero canine (Sam Rockwell), but it seems as if they were dropped into this from a significantly more creative (and less depressing) kid-oriented comedy.  Perhaps Krasinski - who even includes a scene where his lead actress cries at his bed-side - would be better off partnering with another writer or two (or maybe three) and stopped cribbing from Miyazaki and M. Night Shyamalan.