Starring: DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, Matthew Sato, Veronica Falcón, Betty Buckley
OUR RATING: ★★☆☆☆
Story: Supernatural horror directed and co-written by Jeff Wadlow. Imaginary (2024) centers on Jessica (DeWanda Wise), who after moving back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter Alice (Pyper Braun) develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey she finds in the basement. What begins as an innocent game progressively turns into something dark and disturbing with Alice’s behavior becoming more and more concerning. Jessica’s concern grows as she discovers that Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be.
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'Sometimes we create by tearing things apart.' - Jessica (Imaginary) Share on X
Max: Well, the thing with kids is, is that you just give out love, and you trust that they feel it. Even if they usually give you jack s**t in return.
Jessica: That sounds awful.
Max: Yeah, well, it is what it is. You’ll get the love back. Just not how you’d expect.
Jessica: Characters who do bad things aren’t all bad.
Alice: I know you can eat breakfast for dinner, Chauncey, but you can’t do dinner for breakfast.
Max: Every kid has an imaginary friend.
Jessica: I have scars too. And I’m going to have them my whole life. But that’s okay. You know why? Because they become a part of who you are. A part of your story. And it’s okay to feel scared.
Alice: I don’t want you to ever leave me, Chauncey.
Chauncey: Never leave Alice. Never ever. Ever.
Gloria: [to Jessica] So, Alice is just like you then. You were always drawing and inventing new games, and playing with your imaginary friend. You almost, sometimes, had me convinced that he was real.
Liam: So your imaginary friend has his own imaginary friends. Can I hang out with him too?
Alice: He’s not imaginary. And he’s not your friend.
Jessica: You should never have to say goodbye to the things you love.
Jessica: You deserve to feel safe and loved.
Jessica: I thought I could do this. I really did. I just wanted to give them a safe place, you know? To be a good mom. Passable mom, at least. I don’t know.
Alice: [referring to Chauncey] He loves me a lot. He’s always hungry. My favorite thing is his eyes. I can see anything I can imagine in them.
Alice: You said that you loved me.
Alice: [as Chauncey] Nobody love Alice.
Jessica: You’ve seen the stuffed bear, right? Chauncey?
Taylor: What? No. He’s imaginary. That’s what imaginary friends are.
Taylor: [to Jessica] You keep trying to make everything better, but you are only making it worse.
Jessica: This is going to sound out there, but I think that my childhood imaginary friend and Alice’s are the same.
Taylor: My sister is missing. And she didn’t disappear. She ran away because you forced your way into our life and screwed everything up trying to be this perfect mommy. Well, guess what, Jess? You’re not needed.
Gloria: Jessica opened a door. A door that leads to the same place that I believe Alice went.
Gloria: Every culture has a name for it. Entities that tether to the young. The Spanish call it “El Cuco”. The Trinidadians, the “Jumbie”. We call them imaginary friends.
Gloria: People don’t believe in otherworldly things. Until they must. Kids, on the other hand, all have imaginary friends.
Gloria: Friendship isn’t ever one way. Imaginary friends thrive off of a child’s creativity and imagination. It feeds that hunger.
Taylor: So, Bing Bong is bad, and he has Alice?
Gloria: The friend that Jessica was separated from didn’t just disappear. He waited in that house. And his name is not Bing Bong. It’s Chauncey. Isn’t it?
Taylor: We’re seriously doing a kid’s scavenger hunt to open a doorway to a magical spirit world?
Jessica: [to Taylor] Why do I always have to fix your mistakes?
Taylor: She’s my sister. It’s my fault she’s gone. You were right about that. So, we can look together or I’ll find her on my own, but I’m not going back without her.
Jessica: [referring to Ben] He went in to rescue me. Faced that thing and sacrificed his sanity.
Gloria: The entity, it’s been telling me to do this. It wants us here. All of us.
Gloria: I watched you go in all those years ago while I was left behind, alone, abandoned by you, abandoned by him. And now, none of us will be left alone. This is what the entity promised me. A place where you leave pain behind, and where you leave suffering behind, and it’s a place of joy, of endless possibilities.
Gloria: We can be young here. We can create anything. Be anything. We’ll be happy here. All of us. Forever.
Alice: [possessed] I’ve been here too long. Chauncey’s coming for you.
Jessica: I’ll stay. Just leave them alone. Let them live.
Chauncey: You’re mine, finally. Forever ever.
Taylor: [as she hits it] Forever’s over, a**hole.
Chauncey: Alice still my friend?
Alice: You were never my friend. Never ever.