For some reason, we’ve been bombarded with imaginary friend movies in 2024, including a bad horror film, and an aggressively mediocre Ryan Reynolds one. So leave it to Japan, to put the final word on the subject. The Imaginary is everything the middling American movies were not: a beautiful, fascinating tale that works on multiple levels for parents and kids by making a simple but profound perspective change: what if the main character was the imaginary friend?
After a breathtaking introduction (Studio Ponce is great at those), we meet Rudger (Kokoro Terada), NOT Roger. He was imagined 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days, and 3 hours ago by Amanda Shuffleup (Rio Suzuki) and they’ve been the best of friends. Amanda’s mom Lizzie (Sakura Ando) isn’t thrilled Amanda is only talking to imaginary people, but with her bookstore closing soon, mom’s a bit preoccupied at the moment. No matter: Amanda and Rudger have a blast going on all sorts of imaginary adventures. But that all changes when a surveyor named Mr. Bunting (Issey Ogata) shows up…and can see Rudger! Not only see him, but wants to kidnap him, forcing Rudger to go on the run, separating him from Amanda…and his reason he exists.
That journey takes Rudger to Jinzan (Takayuki Yamada): a cat with multicolored eyes, who takes our lost imaginary to the place where the displaced Imaginary friends go. By following Rudger not Amanda, The Imaginary creatively opens up the world to endless possibilities. Benign places in the real world like libraries are raucous meeting places for the Spirited Away menagerie of imaginary friends Rudger finds himself in the middle of. The worldbuilding is most of the fun: we get the rules of the place, and then go on a quest to help the imaginary friendless kids develop a new one while they’re fighting bad guys in outer space. But not every possibility is a fun one for Rudger. There’s a beautiful, melancholic shot of a recently abandoned imaginary friend, glowing, slowly being absorbed into the stars. And then there’s Rudger’s worst case scenario; no one under 8 should see The Imaginary because of Mr. Bunting. As creepy as he is, it’s his quiet, black eyed “Samara from the Ring” avatar that scared me more than some r rated horror films in her brief screen time. There’s a fight/chase in the middle of the real world that’s brilliant, horrifying nightmare fuel, as a couple of imaginaries have to find their way back home, but Bunting and his imaginary keep shape shifting the world Dr. Strange style to disorient and trap them. The Imaginary feels like it took ideas from other famous films, and built a perfect movie puzzle to fit all its disparate pieces in the most satisfying, mind opening ways, especially for the kids watching on Netflix.
But all those visual splendors are empty without substance behind it. Thank goodness, the depths of Yoshiaki Nishimura’s screenplay are wide and far reaching. For kids, there’s a lot of stuff here for how to deal with loss. An imaginary friend is a friend right? This let’s them visualize what can happen to imaginary friends without being too scary, and helps them process those feelings so they can not be too sad about letting go and learn to accept that some times people have to go away, and that’s ok. For adults, there’s more interesting stuff going on: brief little studies of how imaginary friends and nostalgia are closer than you might think, cautionary tales about losing your ability to imagine and be creative, and the power of connections to others, real or imagined. Some ideas go more explored than others, but in the end, The Imaginary should leave you wanting more and get your mind racing because of all the incredible things you just witnessed.
You can basically sum up and say, “The Power of Imagination, Am I Right?” The Imaginary is a wonderful reminder that no matter who you are now, those wondrous made up games and friends you conjured when you were a kid are still inside you somewhere. Don’t let those thoughts die, give them a chance to breathe…or else they’ll be consumed by a completely horrifying black haired colorless eyed shapeshifter. Can you tell the bad imaginary here might have scared me a lil bit?