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    From ‘IF,’ to ‘Imaginary,’ Exploring Imaginary Friends Onscreen

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    Multiple films this year, including the new family comedy “IF,” explore the concept of imaginary friends on the big screen.In the new family comedy “IF,” Ryan Reynolds plays a frazzled matchmaker who, with help from a young girl (Cailey Fleming), unites humans with imaginary friends.John Krasinski, who wrote and directed the film, said the idea took shape as he watched his daughters’ lights dim during the pandemic.“They were playing fewer and fewer imaginary games and I could see they were letting the fears of the real world in and I thought, this is the definition of growing up,” he explained in an email.He said he decided to make the movie, now in theaters, to show his kids that the “magical world they’ve created, that place of such joy and hope and magic, exists. And you can always go back.”Krasinski isn’t alone in bringing imaginary friendships to life this year. “IF” is one of five new movies that explore imaginary friends, in a variety of genres: supernatural horror (“Imaginary”), adult comedy (“Ricky Stanicky”), children’s animated fantasy (“The Imaginary”) and documentary (“My Secret Country”).Why the convergence? Marjorie Taylor, professor emerita of psychology at the University of Oregon and an expert on imaginary friends, wasn’t sure. But she said she wasn’t surprised, considering that pretend friends, as she calls them, have long been artistic catnip.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Imaginary’ Review: Bear Necessity

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      An imaginary friend causes real trouble in this creepy haunted-house picture.Past and present trauma fuse in Jeff Wadlow’s “Imaginary,” the latest in the Blumhouse catalog of reliably creepy horror movies whose fans typically expect well-executed jump scares, fun plot twists and the occasional rubbery monster. What they probably don’t expect is the sophisticated allegory that “Imaginary” appears to be flirting with — and comes close to pulling off — before losing its nerve.Or maybe it’s my imagination gone supernova alongside that of little Alice (a delightful Pyper Braun) and her stepmother, Jessica (DeWanda Wise), a writer and illustrator of children’s books. After Jessica’s father is settled in a care facility, she and her family — including a rebellious teen (Taegen Burns) and a guitar-playing husband (Tom Payne) who smartly buzzes off on tour when things get hairy — move into her childhood home. Almost immediately, Alice is conversing with a stuffed teddy bear she finds in the basement, an imaginary friend whose increasingly sinister games stir memories Jessica has long suppressed.On one level, then, we have a mildly embellished haunted-house picture, entertainingly realized mainly with puppets and other practical effects. There’s also the familiar eerie neighbor (here played by the wonderful Betty Buckley) whose job is to help us make sense of the story’s woo-woo logic. What’s also playing out, though, are the lonely struggles of a stressed-out second wife, who is Black, to connect with the distant, sometimes resentful white stepdaughters whose mentally ill birth mother is not entirely out of the picture.In that sense, the movie’s devolution into, by my count, at least three attempted endings suggests some dithering over whether to deliver the logical conclusion to Jessica’s sacrificial trajectory, or ease the transition to a possible sequel. As to which prevails, you’ll have to use your imagination.ImaginaryRated PG-13 for weaponized scissors and a gargantuan spider. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Curse of Bridge Hollow’ Review: Attack of the Halloween Décor

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      A father and daughter team up to save a town after she sets loose a spirit that brings spooky decorations to life.“The Curse of Bridge Hollow,” a lighthearted horror comedy from the director Jeff Wadlow, boasts an appealing premise: The plucky teenager Sydney (Priah Ferguson), futzing around with a Ouija board, unwittingly sets loose a demonic spirit, which brings to nefarious life every Halloween decoration in town. Her father, Howard (Marlon Wayans), is a high school science teacher and hard-nosed skeptic; when the awakened skeletons, zombies and clowns terrorize the town, the rational father and credulous child must team up and meet each other’s views halfway. And in what seems like the perfect conceptual addendum, the town is widely renowned for its Halloween decorating. “Everyone picks a theme, and then you go big time on that theme,” explains a zealous neighbor (Rob Riggle), whose yard is decked out with zombies in tribute to “The Walking Dead.”This setup promises a gleeful escalation of comic pandemonium, but the film fails to deliver. One early set piece, in which deadly spiders run amok in a nursing home, shows potential but swiftly devolves into a tedious slog of limp action clichés and irreverent quipping. The most flagrant problem is the film’s lack of visual imagination. Wadlow, a good horror director, seems hamstrung by the family-friendly context and struggles to develop tension in the absence of a plausible threat of violence. (For a movie rife with fights and chase scenes, it has a body count of zero.) The creatures are dull and unoriginal across the board, failing to capitalize on the range of styles of decorations, while the evil spirit who is the film’s ultimate villain looks like he’s been outfitted from the discount bin of a Spirit Halloween.The Curse of Bridge HollowNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More