IF (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Aug 30, 2024
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
-
Director
John KrasinskiRelease Date(s)
2024 (August 13, 2024)Studio(s)
Sunday Night Productions/Maximum Effort (Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: C-
Review
John Krasinski may have originally drawn significant attention to himself while playing Jim Halpert in NBC’s successful reboot of the BBC series The Office, but he was quietly working behind-the-scenes toward being something more than just a straight man opposite comic actors like Steve Carrell and Rainn Wilson. He directed three episodes of the show during its 9-year run, and in 2009, he made his feature filmmaking debut by writing, directing, and starring in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. He followed that up in 2016 with the dramatic comedy The Hollars, but neither one of these projects had much of a cultural impact, and they definitely didn’t make any money. Two years later, he opted for the Jordan Peele approach instead, writing and directing the smash hit horror story A Quiet Place. That film grossed $341 million worldwide against a $17 million budget, so clearly Krasinski had found his stride. Unsurprisingly, he stayed in that lane by quickly putting together the sequel A Quiet Place Part II. It cost three times as much to produce and didn’t make quite as much at the box office, but it was still a huge hit by any stretch of the imagination.
Of course, stretching his imagination is precisely what Krasinski loves to do. So, rather than allowing himself to be pigeonholed as a horror director, he decided to make imagination manifest by writing and directing a family-oriented film that focused on how imagination can enrich our lives: IF. The title in this case isn’t a subordinating conjunction, but rather a multilayered way of expressing the theme of the film. IF is definitely a “what if” story, but the title is also an acronym for its central characters, the Imaginary Friends that many of us have used in order to help us cope with challenges of childhood. IF is all about coping in general, with the 12-year-old Bea (Cailey Fleming) still adjusting to having recently lost her mother to cancer. Her father (Krasinski) is being admitted to the hospital for heart surgery, so Bea has to stay temporarily with her grandmother (Fiona Shaw). Bea is struggling with her fears over potentially losing her father as well, and while trying to adjust to her new surroundings, she ends up seeing a strange creature that she follows to a neighbor’s apartment. There, she meets Cal (Ryan Reynolds), and her world ends up turning even farther upside down.
It turns out that Bea isn’t the only one who sees creatures like the one she was following. Cal has opened his home to take in imaginary friends who have been abandoned once their original children have grown up, and he enlists Bea’s help in trying to place them in new homes with new children. That includes a troubled young boy (Alan Kim) who she met at the hospital, but he proves to be a tough nut to crack. Of course, Bea hasn’t really recognized that she’s in just as much need of a friend while she’s dealing with the traumatic upheavals in her life. Yet Cal hasn’t chosen her as a helper just because she can see the Ifs, but also to help her remember the power of her own imagination. There just might be more to Cal than meets the eye. IF also stars Liza Colón-Zayas, Bobby Moynihan, and Barbara Andres.
Of course, the cast for IF doesn’t quite end there. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say that John Krasinski called in a lot of chips to provide the voice cast for all of the animated imaginary friends, including many of his own friends. Are you sitting comfortably? Here goes: Steve Carell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the late Louis Gossett Jr., Awkwafina, Emily Blunt, George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Matt Damon, Bill Hader, Richard Jenkins, Keegan-Michael Key, Blake Lively, Sebastian Maniscalco, Christopher Meloni, Matthew Rhys, Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph, Amy Schumer, and Jon Stewart. Krasinski himself does double duty as another one of the Ifs, and Brad Pitt has a cameo that will only make sense once you read the closing credits (and it still won’t make sense unless you make the connection with another fleeting cameo that he had in a previous film).
If there’s one conceptual issue with IF, it’s that the theme of coping with trauma never quite coalesces with the idea of the power of the imagination. This isn’t The Neverending Story, where imagination itself becomes a positive force for universal change that transcends the limited sphere of childhood trauma. Still, Krasinski’s heart was in the right place, and there are some genuinely touching moments in IF where the adults who have abandoned their old friends finally remember that they might need someone special in their lives after all. Bea may still be a pre-teen, but that includes her as well, and it’s her story that provides the closure for IF. In those still, quiet moments, we all need someone who we can turn to, even when we’re feeling all alone.
Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński captured IF digitally in ARRIRAW format at 6.5K resolution using Arri Alexa 65 cameras with Arri Prime DNA lenses. While there’s no information available regarding how the image was handled in post-production, it looks like it was finished as a 4K Digital Intermediate, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. This version has been graded for High Dynamic Range in both Dolby Vision and HDR10. Interestingly enough, despite the family-friendly nature of the film, this is one case where the HDR grade is relatively restrained and the biggest improvements over standard HD come from the upgrade in resolution. There’s a lot of furry characters in IF, with Blue in particular being front and center for the majority of the film, and every single hair on every character has been rendered perfectly here. (Check out the intricate details on the face of the sunflower voiced by Matt Damon, too.) The contrast range is where the HDR grade has the most noticeable impact; the highlights aren’t necessarily dazzling, but there’s real depth to the blacks. The colors aren’t quite as vivid as they have been in some other hybrid live action/animated family films like this, yet there’s just as much depth to the subtle variations between the colors.
Primary audio is offered in English Dolby Atmos. Subtlety is also the guiding principle behind the sound design, since IF is mercifully free of any chase scenes or other kinds of action that some family films inevitably tack on to the proceedings. There is some sporadic deep bass, especially where Blue (Steve Carrell) is concerned, but it’s fleeting because the film simply doesn’t need it anywhere else. The immersion of the object-based mix is equally subtle, with sound effects moving around the viewer in relatively naturalistic fashion. That includes the overhead channels, with the staircase in the apartment building providing plenty of opportunity for engagement from the ceiling speakers. The score for IF was composed by the ubiquitous Michael Giacchino, and it sounds wonderful in this lossless presentation.
Additional audio options include English Descriptive Audio, plus German, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), French (France), French (Canada), Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish 5.1 Dolby Digital. Subtitle options include English, English SDH, Danish, German, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), French (France), French (Canada), Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish.
Paramount’s 4K Ultra HD release of IF is UHD only—there’s no Blu-ray included in the package. There is a Digital code on a paper insert tucked inside, and there’s also a slipcover that matches the artwork on the insert. The following extras are included, all of them in HD:
- The Imagination Behind IF (5:21)
- Imagining Imaginary Friends (5:18)
- Giving Ifs a Voice (5:49)
- Blending the Real and the Imaginary (5:31)
- Tina Turner Forever! (3:31)
- The Imaginative World of IF (6:01)
- Gag Reel (3:53)
- Learn to Draw Blue from IF (6:37)
Most of these are pretty basic EPK featurettes, with the addition of a Gag Reel and an instructional video from the Art for Kids Hub YouTube channel. They combine behind-the scenes footage, clips from the film, and interviews with various cast and crew members such as John Krasinski, Ryan Reynolds, Cailey Fleming, Fiona Shaw, Alan Kim, Janusz Kamiński, producer Allyson Seeger, visual effects supervisor Chris Lawrence, and production designer Jess Gonchor. The Imagination Behind IF details the development of the story; Imagining Imaginary Friends traces the development of the various imaginary characters; Giving Ifs a Voice covers the diverse voice cast, with footage from the ADR sessions; Blending the Real and the Imaginary purports to discuss shooting things practically (more on that in a moment); Tina Turner Forever! shows how the fake Tina Turner music video was shot; and The Imaginative World of IF focuses on the locations and the production design. While a sticker on the slipcover proudly proclaims “Over 40 Min. of Bonus Content,” there’s not much real content in this 40 minutes of content. Also, fans of Jonas Ussing’s “No CGI” is Really Just Invisible CGI series will cringe through all the mentions of “shooting things practically” in Blending the Real and the Imaginary. The visual effects in IF are 100% digital, so the only “practical” things in the film are the actors and the sets. They did have puppets, cardboard cutouts, and other tangible stand-ins for the digital characters in order to give the actors something to react to, but that’s pretty much standard practice at this point. (There needs to be a moratorium on filmmakers and actors being allowed to use the word “practical” in promotional materials.)
Still, the target audience for family fare like IF doesn’t necessarily care about in-depth extras, and the video and audio quality in this 4K presentation will satisfy any parents who have invested in quality home theatre equipment. IF might not be the cup of tea for fans of the A Quiet Place franchise, but for fans of John Krasinski who are interested in seeing him stretch himself a bit, it’s an interesting film. It’s also a good reminder that we all need a friend sometimes, wherever we may find them.
- Stephen Bjork
(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, and Letterboxd).