10 May 2024.
By Neptune
IF (BLUE ET COMPAGNIE) ****
Did you have an imaginary friend when you were growing up? That’s what the title IF stands for, and it’s an uplifting and amusing revelation.
This mix of live-action and animation is about an adolescent girl (Cailey Fleming) who lost her mother as a child. She has now come back to her old, spacious apartment in Brooklyn with her grandmother, where she begins to see imaginary characters in the building. She also regularly visits the hospital for her father’s upcoming operation.
Handsomely filmed by the great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, the story brings us into the magical world of strange but lovable beings who feel in limbo, for the children they befriended have grown up and left them. They feel useless without their young human buddies who so needed them back then. (remember the final episode of “Toy Story”?)
Here is a work that is wise, tender but also funny due to the varied imaginary figures led by a huge furry blob called Blue, and including a hilarious Bogart-style detective. It’s all in the vein of the rousing “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” from 2022, starring Javier Bardem (which you should download if you missed it).
Strangely enough, IF is written, directed and acted by John Krasinski (as the father), who made the intense horror film “A Quiet Place”, while it also stars a charming Ryan Reynolds from the extremely vulgar and violent “Deadpool” franchise. Mercifully, they’ve made a complete turnabout here and decided to make a sweet film appropriate for their own young children. And they’ve done it beautifully!
Run to it with the whole family, run to it with friends or even go to it alone, for this is not only delightful entertainment, but a moving, soulful contemplation on life and relationships. Something we need now in our troubled world.
THE HYPNOSIS **1/2 (vo Swedish)
A young couple in Sweden are preparing a startup on women’s health and are getting ready for the big convention where they will be making their pitch to potential backers. They are obviously nervous and excited, and the young woman decides to go for a session of hypnosis for her smoking problem before the big date.
They have been a compatible, united couple. She (Asta Kamma August) is somewhat timid and he (Herbert Nordrum) is quite ambitious. But after the hypnosis session the girl seems to have changed. She acts strangely, somewhat careless in her attitude towards her partner.
When they arrive at the all-important convention, she becomes uncontrollable, showing bizarre traits both in her professional and social manners. It obviously throws off her boyfriend completely, accentuating his doubts about himself and their relationship.
Here’s where the atmosphere becomes cringeworthy, as she becomes more and more anti-social and unaccountable, with the fellow at a complete loss, losing his own nerves.
This could be an analysis of modern malaise in the work field or a private dilemma about trust and fidelity. Or is this first film by Ernst De Geer just a black comedy?
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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