< Does 'IF' capture the magic of its Pixar inspiration?

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STEPHEN THOMPSON, HOST:

In the new movie "IF," a 12-year-old girl discovers that she can see other people's imaginary friends. John Krasinski wrote and directed the film, which mixes the real world and animation. But does it capture the heart of the Pixar movies that inspired it? I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about "IF" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.

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THOMPSON: Joining me today is Philadelphia Inquirer, arts and entertainment editor and film critic Bedatri D. Choudhury. Hey, Bedatri.

BEDATRI CHOUDHURY: Hello. Glad to be here.

THOMPSON: Glad to have you. Also with us as entertainment journalist Cristina Escobar. She's the co-founder and editor-in-chief of LatinaMedia Punto Co. Welcome back, Cristina.

CRISTINA ESCOBAR: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

THOMPSON: I am glad to have you both. So in "IF," we meet a 12-year-old girl named Bea. She's played by Cailey Fleming. Bea has already lost her mom, so she's raised by her widowed father, played by John Krasinski. But when he's hospitalized with a mysterious illness, Bea is thrown into crisis and begins to see an assortment of other people's imaginary friends. These colorful characters take many forms, like a gigantic adorable purple monster voiced by Steve Carell, and several of them are wrangled by a beleaguered human named Cal, played by Ryan Reynolds.

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RYAN REYNOLDS: (As Cal) Don't do this, OK?

STEVE CARELL: (Vocalizing as Blue).

REYNOLDS: (As Cal) Blue. Hey, hey. I swear to God I will never speak to you again as long as I live if you do this. Please. Look at me. Do not do it. Please.

THOMPSON: What all the imaginary friends have in common is that their one-time child companions have grown up and no longer remember them. So Bea and Cal embark on a mission to find them new kids against the backdrop of Bea's dad's illness. "IF" was written and directed by John Krasinski, and is in theaters now. Bedatri, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of "IF"?

CHOUDHURY: So "IF" is not very successful in a lot of things, and we'll talk about it. What it was very successful in doing is making me bawl. Like, and I don't even know if it's in a good way or a bad way. It was an empty theater on a Saturday morning. Well, that should tell you a lot about the film. It's a kid's film. The theater was empty on a Saturday morning. But, you know, there's definitely some prowess to the filmmaking, the technical aspect of it, which really tugs at your heart even as an adult. In retrospect, I was not very floored by the film, but I cried a lot while I watched it.

THOMPSON: This film has a lot of heart.

CHOUDHURY: Yes, it does.

THOMPSON: Right?

CHOUDHURY: And - hearts, broken hearts, yes. A lot of that, yes.

THOMPSON: OK. How about you, Cristina?

ESCOBAR: I saw this film Friday evening with my kids, and, you know, they love going to the movies. It's always an adventure and fun. But we walked out of it literally just sort of confused. You know, they're pretty easy marks. And I think between the two of them, they laughed one time and were just really confused about why it was so, so sad. And I want to say it wasn't just that it was sad - and it definitely was sad - it was that it had one note of sadness that just sort of carried on for the whole movie and never went up or down or around or anywhere unexpected. It was just kind of like, here is medium sadness for a long time in a kid's movie.

CHOUDHURY: No, but also it's very difficult to incorporate a long, straight line of medium sadness. And I think that's where the story falters a little bit. And I think this story has so many subplots that, you know, by the end of it, after you've cried and, you know, recovered from all the crying, you're just like, wait, that doesn't make any sense. Like, you know, there are...

THOMPSON: Oh boy.

CHOUDHURY: ...Lots of loose ends, the math doesn't math, you know, a lot of those things.

ESCOBAR: I guess I felt like it would have actually been more emotionally effective had it had more hills and valleys. So, for instance, I don't know if, like, Ryan Reynolds lost a bet and had to be in this movie against his will, but he did not bring any humor or any charm or any of the things that he's known for. And had that been like a Jack Nicholson-type, grumpy but lovable character...

THOMPSON: Yeah.

ESCOBAR: ...Which I think is what the script was going for, the movie might have worked a lot better. But instead, it was just sort of like a flat nothingness that just felt to me like there were so many missed opportunities in a movie that clearly cost a lot of money because it was beautiful. And the places where it excelled, to me, were the visual sequences, like, there's a part where they go to where the IFs live, and it's beautiful and stunning, and it changes. And wow, visually, that cost a lot of money and looked great, but it didn't really feel like it was in service of anything.

CHOUDHURY: I think you could say the same thing about the stacked star cost here. Like, you are impressed by the names, but you're not sure what they're doing here (laughter).

THOMPSON: Yeah. I want to push back at one thing that both of you have said, which is you described the tone of this film as sad. And I do think, yes, there is an undercurrent of that, but I felt like the tone was more, like, cloying, like, more like it's going for sweet more than sad at the expense of any humor in a film that is full of wacky, colorful characters.

ESCOBAR: Yes.

THOMPSON: And there are no jokes.

ESCOBAR: (Laughter) There are no jokes. It might have been going for a sweet, but I think what it achieved was sad. I didn't walk away feeling sweet or affirmed. I would say Cailey Fleming does a really good job. She was great as Bea.

THOMPSON: Yeah. I hear that completely. Yeah. I liked her performance fine. I believe that this film's heart was in the right place. I think John Krasinski, throughout his kind of post-"The Office" career, and even in his "Office" career, is somebody who is very interested in portraying male decency.

CHOUDHURY: Yes.

THOMPSON: I think he's very interested in, like, showing you what a good father looks like.

CHOUDHURY: Yes.

THOMPSON: What this film has in common with the "Quiet Place" movies is they're all very invested in showing you a good dad. Also, to Bedatri, talking about how hard you cried at this film, it's worth pointing out that John Krasinski here is working with the composer Michael Giacchino, who won an Oscar for writing the score to "UP," which is a phenomenal score, but it is a very heavy score. It is a very...

CHOUDHURY: Yes.

THOMPSON: And by heavy, I mean, like, it is wrenching your emotional buttons. Like, it is working very hard. The cinematography is by Janusz Kaminski, who's an Oscar-winning cinematographer. And the film, to Cristina's point, looks gorgeous. It's playing with light in interesting ways, and the IFs are beautifully rendered. What this film lacks besides jokes is any storytelling logic whatsoever. This movie makes no sense.

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ESCOBAR: Yes.

THOMPSON: If you're going for live-action Pixar, you don't watch a Pixar movie and say, what are they trying to do? Usually, what they're trying to do in a Pixar movie is literally in the title, like "Finding Nemo."

ESCOBAR: Right.

THOMPSON: Maybe this title kind of fits it like, (vocalizing)? (Laughter) So for me, I found it so frustrating. And, you know, Cristina, you talked about there's a scene where they're kind of moving through, like, an art studio, and there's, like, all this, like, trippy visual imagery. It's visually witty, and I definitely sat there watching this scene thinking, I wish I took drugs, you know, 'cause I would probably enjoy this. I would probably be really - I'd probably be blown away by this scene. Kind of how I felt watching the movie "Cats." But, like, none of it is in service of any kind of logic.

ESCOBAR: Yeah. I felt like it was missing, well, one, internal logic. But then also, like, I remember when I was a kid, I saw "Little Monsters" with Fred Savage, and they, like, go into, like, a kid universe where monsters under your bed are real, right? There's lots of movies, of kids' movies, where you get to go into a place where children imagine.

THOMPSON: Right.

ESCOBAR: And that's what this movie I thought was going to be. But it never really achieves. Even though it is so beautiful, it never achieves that sort of magical escape. And I think it's 'cause the characters don't really work. Like, they're beautifully rendered, but I don't think my children are going to remember any of these creatures. Like, I remember watching "Little Monsters" and how I felt and how exciting it was to see, like, an imagination of a kid on screen, right? Like, it was missing some of those things that made the characters work. And part of that is probably missing some jokes.

CHOUDHURY: Yeah. And story. I know there's, like, this whole thing to stories and telling stories, never stop telling stories in the film. So it's such...

THOMPSON: Right.

CHOUDHURY: ...A shame that the film doesn't tell a good story. And I think...

ESCOBAR: Yeah.

CHOUDHURY: ...Cristina, you know, these friends, these imaginary friends, they are beautifully rendered. What they don't have is a deeper story beyond I like to dance. I like to drink tea, which is why my friend likes to drink tea, you know, as someone who's had many imaginary friends and continues to do so. I think they are such deep stories to each one of them. And the film just sees all of them cut from the same cloth and doesn't go into these specific stories, which could have, I don't know whether it would have, but it couldn't have been much worse is where I'm at.

THOMPSON: It's interesting. You talk about "Little Monsters," and, you know, a movie that I kept thinking about watching this film was "Toy Story" where you've got this kind of part of the undercurrent of sadness is in effect, children's playthings have lost their purpose because the children have grown up and don't remember them anymore. And there's a lot of parallels to "Toy Story" there. But there's not really a lot of, as you say, Bedatri, we're not really getting the pathos from that, so much as, like, now I don't have a purpose, but it's not you know, you think about "Toy Story" and the, like, some of the most wrenching scenes in the "Toy Story" movies, you know, the scene of, like, remember when she loved me.

CHOUDHURY: Yeah.

THOMPSON: And here, it's just like, why - who has an imaginary friend that's a glass of ice water? Like, I'm just sitting there, like, they kind of give a little bit of an explanation that the kid is thirsty, but that just feels like a very fleeting imaginary friendship.

CHOUDHURY: Yeah.

THOMPSON: This imaginary friend is a marshmallow. I just didn't even - and, Bedatri, you said you have imaginary friends.

CHOUDHURY: Don't you? I'm - like (laughter)...

THOMPSON: I guess I don't, or I didn't, or maybe I did, but I don't remember, and I'm part of the problem. I just didn't - they could have wrung so much more pathos out of that sense of lost childhood.

CHOUDHURY: Yes, I agree. And even, like, the main IF that we see - so, you know, if you are a listener and you haven't caught on, "IF" is basically I and F, which is imaginary friend. So the main IF that we see, he's so cute. And then - but we just don't know what he is or who he is beyond the fact that he bumbles a lot, like, he mumbles, and then he confuses himself a lot, and then he just, like, has these very violent, big sneezes, and nobody's telling us why.

ESCOBAR: And even when we get to his back story, and, you know, you get a little further on in the movie, and he gets to glow or whatever, like, it makes no sense. You're like, is this the goal?

CHOUDHURY: Yeah.

ESCOBAR: I don't really...

THOMPSON: None.

ESCOBAR: ...Understand the relationship you had. I felt like the matching body types between him and his person was super weird, and they talked about it. Like, there was just all sorts of strange things that when they tried to go there, just made no sense and didn't work emotionally or comically or in any real sort of way. It was just like, here's some more confusion stuff.

THOMPSON: Yeah. And boy, this is going to feel like nitpicking. The storyline with John Krasinski as the widowed dad who is - faces a health peril, the portrayal of his hospitalization was genuinely the most confusing portrayal of a health crisis I think I have ever seen in a movie, and I have seen some confusing, shorthanded, weird portrayals of what illness is like. He basically has, like, it's apparently something with his heart, but it involves going to the hospital...

CHOUDHURY: And staying there forever.

THOMPSON: Staying there for days without being treated. This has him...

CHOUDHURY: Yeah.

THOMPSON: ...Just, like, sitting around in a hospital room like it's a Ramada inn.

ESCOBAR: In his street clothes, looking very handsome.

THOMPSON: In his street clothes, just, like, waiting around to be - it is so confusing. This film, it's all heart but no storytelling logic. And that kept pulling me out of the heart of it to the point where, you know, I'm an easy mark for people who fancy themselves good dads (laughter). I should be such an easy mark for this movie, but I kept getting pulled out of it.

CHOUDHURY: No, even as someone who is an easy mark, and they got me, I agree with you. You know, it is possible to, you know, come out of your tears and then not see any sense.

THOMPSON: To be mad at yourself for crying, Bedatri, I feel like that's something you and I have in common.

CHOUDHURY: I was so mad. I have no clue why I cried so much. Is there something going on in my life that I'm not aware of?

THOMPSON: Anybody have anything else?

CHOUDHURY: I just want to say that Bea is one of, like, the chicest dressed preteen that I've ever seen on screens. Like, who is dressing this girl? I think that's my big takeaway from the film.

ESCOBAR: Her outfits were great. I was like, do they have that in grown-up size? Like, she looked good.

THOMPSON: Wow, well, I think it's safe to say we have mixed feelings about "IF." We want to know what you think about the movie. Find us at facebook.com/pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Bedatri D. Choudhury, Cristina Escobar, thanks so much for being here.

CHOUDHURY: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

ESCOBAR: Thank you.

THOMPSON: This episode was produced by Liz Metzger and edited by Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all tomorrow.

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