Imagination Collides with Reality in "The Imaginary"

It seems like animation this year is determined to examine the human psyche at the movies. First, we got Pixar's Inside Out 2, in which the brilliant Emeryville animators visualized what uncontrolled anxiety can look like inside your head. Now Studio Ponoc is looking at what happens to the imaginary friends we as adults forget. Granted, maybe I'm not the best person to be having this discussion with; I genuinely have no recollection of ever having an imaginary friend, as I spent most of my childhood days with my miniature schnauzer Schultz. Still, as kids play with toys, eventually we grow up and move on to other things.

What happens to those imaginary friends, though? Do they simply disappear, like a form of creator's death? The Imaginary follows a young girl named Amanda and her imaginary friend Rudger, who spend their days playing with each other as Amanda uses her imagination to take them on adventures. And Amanda has quite the imagination: she can find a way to go on a sledding adventure while trying to avoid giant monsters chasing them because they want to use them as ornaments on their Christmas tree.

Maybe sequences like these primarily exist to show that the studio (which was formed by ex-animators and producers from Studio Ghibli) can create visually imaginative worlds and sequences without the help of Hayao Miyazaki, but they are as engaging as anything Ghibli can create, so I'll let it slide. Besides, it's wonderful to enjoy the film for all the beauty that animators can create before it delivers on its sobering reality, in which Amanda is involved in a car accident that threatens to change her life forever.

It is clear that once she wakes up, Rudger will be forgotten, and thus he will disappear. Like with people, no one really knows what death looks like, so it makes sense that the Imaginaries (as they are referred to) are scared of that eventual fate. Thankfully, they do have a chance to live on in a library where other Imaginaries take on jobs to become temporary imaginary friends for other kids. If the kid loves them enough, they become a permanent Imaginary (I suppose it kind of works like a "temp-for-hire" position). It is amazing how well-thought-out (ho ho) all these scenarios are.

Earlier this year, John Krasinski released IF, a movie that I admired for what it was trying to do, but felt that it didn't pull off the pesky issue of reality. In that movie, reality is something that comes in to ruin kids' fun. In this movie, reality is a natural part of growing up, and it isn't seen as a bad thing so much as something that must occur as a natural part of the circle of life. The Imaginary is fun in many ways, but the true staying power comes in how beautifully it handles sadness and trauma, which makes it the perfect dessert for families after they cry their eyes out watching Inside Out 2.

P.S. I saw The Imaginary in a movie theater, where the visuals popped out and overwhelmed me with their sheer beauty. Sadly, the film is being distributed by Netflix, and since they hate people having great movie experiences, most will be watching it on their TV screens. Thankfully, the film is great enough that a small-screen experience is also good, but a big-screen experience is transformative. It's a shame most people won't experience it this way.