Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of movie deputy reviews, where we are here once again interrogating another movie for its plot and content.
[00:00:11] And let me tell you something, this is one heck of a movie. But before I get into that, I want to address why I have not had any reviews up for this week. This week has been very exhausting, very emotional, very, just kind of all over the place. And so when we get into this movie, you'll understand why I'm talking about it the way I am. But on Mother's Day, just this past Sunday, my family lost somebody very special. My husband actually lost his mom and I lost my mother in law on Mother's Day.
[00:00:47] It was kind of unexpected. It was. We knew, I mean, she wasn't in the greatest of health, but we just didn't expect.
[00:00:55] It just hit, it hit us all pretty hard. And we have been taking this week to grieve and to plan and to kind of figure things out. And I'm going to be taking a hiatus probably in June while we go out of state to take care of matters associated with this. And I also want to address, I'm not referring to her strictly as my mother in law because she was my mother in love.
[00:01:21] I really lucked out in the mother in the in law category. And a lot of people, I mean, I hear horror stories online all the time and I read about horror stories and I'm just like, I am so thankful I never had that. And so she is going to be very, very missed.
[00:01:40] And so I just wanted to kind of address that and stuff real quick. And the movie that we're talking about today, it actually also deals with parental loss. It is the movie about imaginary friends called if. Now that's literally the title. It's just the word if, which is just the acronym for imaginary Friends, which is such a cute thing that they do with this. It's just a play on words.
[00:02:06] And it's once in a great while that a movie comes along like this and just really kind of changes the game.
[00:02:14] And it's so rare for a movie to do that in a way such as this. Now, I do want to address if you have lost someone close to you, especially a parent, and that has been in a traumatic fashion or a way that was traumatic to you, this movie is Quincy. Sorry, my, as usual, the kitty cats are in here with me, thankful to one fast cat for their amazing wheel. But occasionally they come in here and use mommy's office as a jungle gym. But getting back to the thing, if you've lost a parent in a traumatic way, or it was like, just traumatic to you. This movie will gut you now.
[00:02:58] Just losing my mother in love as recently as I did. And this one, it's like I could not control the tears, but this one deals with it on an entirely different level. And you get to really see how important these imaginary friends are because early on, we see this little girl playing with her parents. And then you jumps kind of forward in time a little bit. And you see this young lady, and she is just. She's now staying with her grandmother. Her dad's in the hospital. No, we don't worry. No spoilers on that. And things. The relationship that she had with her mom. And just. There's just so many dynamics going on. You're like, okay, what is the direction that the story is trying to go into? Well, then she unexpectedly saw some imaginary friends and trying to be creative with them and do things that were a little bit outside the norm. And she didn't really understand what was going on. And so part of the story is her just trying to figure out what these imaginary friends are doing. Another part of the story is her trying to find homes for the imaginary friends. Think of, like, the cartoon foster's home for the imaginary friends.
[00:04:14] This movie is like a live action version, somewhat of that. So if you've ever seen that cartoon or if you're a child in the nineties and are at all familiar with that cartoon, check it out. Like I said, this is like a live action version of that with a lot more heart involved. And so you see her in the hospital, and you see her out of the hospital, and you see her interacting with all of these. And then you really get to see the connections between the kids and their imaginary friends and the imaginary friends and the kids that they used to know, it's just a really emotional journey as they take you along with this. And if you haven't already guessed, I am giving this movie an innocent rating. It is not for maybe the youngest of audiences. I would say six, maybe eight and above on that, because there's just some heavy, just things that they deal with along in this story here. Now, nothing that is too much for younger audiences or anything like that. There's nothing that is over the top. There's nothing. There's absolutely nothing gory or anything scary.
[00:05:23] Think of almost like, monsters, Inc. Think of, like, Sully and Boo and just kind of things like that. But it's not that. It's like. It's.
[00:05:33] If you could mix Foster song with the imaginary Franz with Monsters, Inc. And somehow make it live action. And you get. You get this.
[00:05:42] And it's. It's done so beautifully and so well put together and so well told, and surprisingly, it is not woke at all. Now, I could have seen some directions that they could have gone with this, but thankfully, they didn't. They didn't even come close to it.
[00:06:01] And one of the things that this really kind of hits home with a lot of people is that sometimes life doesn't always have to be fun. That's actually a line from the movie. It's just sometimes life is tough. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's.
[00:06:22] It's too much.
[00:06:24] And we feel. It's like we can be in a room full of people and we can still feel alone. And the ultimate point of this movie is that you're never really alone. No matter how alone you may feel.
[00:06:39] Nothing you love can ever be forgotten.
[00:06:43] And that includes you. If somebody loves you or if somebody has ever loved you, you will never be forgotten.
[00:06:51] There's just so much to this as the movie. As you've noticed, I haven't mentioned the score yet. I'm saving that to the end.
[00:07:00] There's an in memory of it, the end of credits on this one. And again, it's just one of those things that's going to make you tear up a little bit. But it's in loving memory of our friend Louis Gossett junior. He was involved with the making of this movie and has passed recently, so they do a beautiful dedication to him. And if you go to this movie, make sure it's.
[00:07:22] I can't talk through the credits as there is a beautiful memoriam bonus scene towards him. And like I said, it is just so beautifully done and just so warm and inviting. And you just feel like you just want to reach out and give these characters a hug.
[00:07:42] You just get caught up in the story, and you get caught up in your own imagination. And if you ever had an imaginary friend, this one's gonna. This one's gonna hit deep. This one's gonna hit you pretty deep. But in a way that this is not one that you will ever likely forget. There. There are very few movies that come along like this one, and I'll like, wow.
[00:08:10] So I'll let you just kind of even guess where I am score wise on this one. This one might surprise you a little bit, but the movie if is kid, all I can say is, again, is wow. I am giving if an 8.5 out of ten on the movie deputy scale. Now, you did hear that correctly. I'm giving it an 8.5. Now, I did catch a few things, but there's things that most people probably wouldn't even catch is just, like, little things that would just bug me just ever so slightly. But the story was strong enough that it carried it through those.
[00:08:49] Is this for everyone? I think I said absolutely. Unless you have ever lost a parent or someone very close to you in a traumatic way, then this one, there's. There's certain parts to this one that are just gonna rip your heart out if you've been through something like that.
[00:09:07] But the story as a whole. And there's so many things to this that if you have not already planned on seeing this, please do it. Just. It demands to be experienced. This is movie that you don't watch. This is not a movie that you watch. This is a movie that you experience because you become part of the movie as you're watching it. So please take that. Take it along with you. Share this. Of course, you know which buttons to hit so you always get the latest and greatest movie. Deputy content. The other movies that we're going to be talking about this weekend aren't quite.
[00:09:44] Let me just be blunt. They're not anywhere near as good as this one is, but they may. They're still going to have their audience out there. And I will be back to talk to you, though, about those soon. So take care and I hope you enjoy. Bye.
