IF is Inescapably Fantastic

I know I tout it every single week how I’m just an Average Dude. It says so right in the title. And for the most part, I think it’s true. I believe in hard work, loyalty and an unchanging magnetic north to my moral compass. But there are times when I am convinced that I am not an average dude. Not better. Just…different.

I guess we all feel that way sometimes. And, being an honest average dude, that feeling is probably more right than wrong. Again, that doesn’t make it a bad thing. Nobody wants to be JUST like everyone else. We all want to be unique in some way. We all want to be special. Then adulting gets in the way and the want gets lost in the day-to-day. It happens to all of us. But sometimes we are lucky and find a reminder that the wanting is not lost forever.

IF is one of those reminders

IF wallops us in the feels right out of the gate. Bea (played by TWD’s Cailey ‘Judith’ Fleming) loses her mother to illness and becomes maybe the most grown-up, serious, no fun 12 year old one could imagine. Calamity follows tragedy, and Bea’s father (John Krasinski) is admitted to hospital for heart surgery. Bea’s heart of steel becomes a heart of stone. Her father, a child-at-heart, does his best to lighten her load (world’s best dad, IMO) to no avail. Bea will not be moved.

Thank goodness for childlike curiosity

Though Bea had made herself into a 12 year old adult, youthful inquisitiveness is still a driving force. She is having glimpses of someone…a little girl, she thinks…in the shadows and ducking around corners. Where hope has been packed away, curiosity still lives. Bea’s tenaciousness eventually brings her face to face with what was lost…an IF.

Like finding a new cup-holder in your 2017 Jeep

Lost and found is kind of the theme for IF, and it doesn’t get old or oversold. It might have been luck or by design, but apparently we as humans never get tired of the thrill of finding what was once thought to be gone. Or finding something new in something you’ve had for years. The old becomes new again. And that is magical, even IF only for a moment.

Imaginatively Fun

It’s so much fun every time a new IF is introduced. Guessing the voices without mentally stepping out of the movie is not easy, and there are plenty of them. Clearly, everyone in Hollywood wanted a piece of IF. I dare you to spot them all without the help of Google. And there is one IF that you could not possibly get because it does not speak. But when you see who it is you are struck once again by the brilliance of IF. IF becomes new again, if you will.

Ryan Reynolds doing Ryan Reynolds things, part 1

IF would have been a solid movie had the star been pretty much anyone else. Having Ryan Reynolds as the co-star makes it beyond entertaining. Reynolds plays Cal, the leader and caretaker of the IFs (local chapter, I assume). And even as a sardonic pessimist, we can’t help but love him. The dude just never disappoints. I have a direct interaction with Ryan Reynolds on Facebook. I’ll show it to you someday. It made Facebook new again for me.

Inevitable Five (or close enough)

So, I’m gleefully giving IF a 4.9 out of 5 happy faces. What’s missing, you ask? We got plenty of IF. This movie was full to overflowing of WHAT. The missing element is WHY? As in WHY was Bea able to see the IFs in the first place? IF that question had been answered, this would have been a 5/5, hands down. In the end, I guess the why’s are sometimes over-rated and we just need to accept the IS and enjoy the ride. Kids can do that SO much better than we adults. And that brings me to the realization that I might not be as average as I thought.

IF is a movie that kids will love but I suspect not all adults will love it as much as I did. Full disclosure: I was on the cusp of blubbering audibly by the end. Certainly the tears were rolling. God bless Mrs. Average Dude for handing me a napkin before the movie even started. She knows me so well. Your Average Dude is a sucker for kids, dogs and redemption. And apparently, the journey to find what was lost is not as far for this average dude as it is for others. In that, I suspect I am very un-average. Totally cool with it.

Ryan Reynolds doing Ryan Reynolds things, part 2

For those who follow Welcome to Wrexham, this was his latest birthday prank played on Rob McElehenny… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCKgewLdK9w
Its been living rent-free in my skull for two weeks now.

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