★★

There’s nothing wrong with a children’s film striving for cross-generational appeal. A hit on target can be pure magic. Pixar nailed just that with every film in their heyday and it’s a sweet spot the first two Paddington films exemplified. Miss, however, and you might wind up with a film like IF. That’s to say, a middling effort, neither fun enough for kids nor interesting enough for mum and dad. This is the new feature from John Krasinski, skewing young for the first time after horror dabbles in A Quiet Place. Krasinski has a natural flare for concept cinema but here his efforts feel strained, the push for pathos too obvious and contrived. It’s like watching an adult’s distant memory of childhood, repurposed through the weary lens of parental experience. The imagination is there, it’s just not the wild and boundless sort of children really enjoy.

For a case in point, look only to the opening. As per twee tradition, IF is prologued by home video montage, flashbacks to a young family’s carefree past. It’s a red flag for trauma to come but hampered by a shooting tone more in sync with advertisement for life insurance than family friendly fun. Among a raft of better examples, the sequence compares unfavourably with the zany and wit-laden opening of The Muppets or the devastating sequence that opened Up. IF shares the latter’s composer, in Michael Giacchino, but you wouldn’t think it.

The sequence leads us to a present day in which 12-year-old Bea (The Walking Dead’s Cailey Fleming) is down to one parent, having lost her mother to cancer. When her father, played in uber-goof mode by Krasinski himself, is hospitalised for some unspecified major operation, Bea moves in with her Brooklyn Heights based grandmother (a wobbly accented Fiona Shaw). Again, the territory and set up are achingly familiar.

Bereavement is a weighty theme for any film and it’s an admirable script that weaves anxiety into the mix. Bea’s surface level cool – ‘I’m not a kid’ – does little to disguise the panic stirred in her at the thought of losing her father too. That’s where the IFs come in, an IF being one’s childhood Imaginary Friend. Krasinski peddles the concept little too hard – a little too convinced of its brilliance, perhaps – but it’s not hard to grasp. IFs are born of a child’s vibrant imagination and can be any shape, size or form. When the child grows out of their IF, and no longer needs them, they lose the ability to see them. Heaven forbid the child should forget all about their old IF. It’s all too clear that Bea, in the depths of her crisis, could do with an imaginary friend – both to keep her safe and to remind her that, yes, she really is still a kid.

In graphic realisation, the IFs are a fair enough bunch. Nothing extraordinary – not a patch on anything a real child could come up with – but as visually appealing as they need to be. A giant, fluffy purple monster, reminiscent of Sully in Monsters Inc., steals most scenes, while other IFs include a china doll with butterfly wings, spaceman, unicorn, talking marshmallow and glass of water. Each is voiced by an A-lister from Krasinski’s well-thumbed phone book. George Clooney, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Bradley Cooper, Matt Damon, Awkwafina…it’s an impressive roll call. As for Blue, the erroneously named purple fluff-bucket, Krasinski has roped in his old Office co-star, Steve Carell.

Atop the circus is Ryan Reynolds’ Cal, Bea’s gently crotchety neighbour, ringmaster of the IFs and the only adult in the room able to see them. It’s an easy win for Reynolds, albeit one that never really challenges him to exceed gentle charm. Indeed, nothing here does. The IFs live in a retirement home beneath a dilapidated Coney Island carousel, it’s not exactly the stuff of pure imagination. There’s a peppy musical number halfway through, which goes some way towards reinvigorating a slow first half, but little else by way of razzmatazz. IF is thoughtful, misty-eyed and nostalgic. It’s also a touch boring.

Whether the film will resonate with younger audiences remains to be seen. It seems unlikely. Kids don’t need loud and brash to hold their attention but wonderment is necessary and a sense that the story has their interests in mind. What with its retro idealism – do iPad wielding youngsters even have time for imaginary friends these days? – and winsome sentimentality, IF may well tug at parental heartstrings but only if they’re not too distracted trying to keep the intended audience entertained. If only.

T.S.