“Why is John Krasinski directing a live-action version of a Pixar film?” I wondered when I first saw a preview for IF, a title that represents an acronym for “Imaginary Friend.”

IF is about a twelve-year-old girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) who’s suddenly able to see these adorable, invisible creatures wandering around New York City, separated from their children who’ve grown up and forgotten them. She meets an irascible neighbor named Cal (Ryan Reynolds), who can also see IFs; together they set out to reunite adults with their long-lost IFs.

So you see what I mean about the Pixar effect. Pixar’s Soul gave us adorable spirit characters separated from their humans after death, and the one soul trying to reunite with his person so he could live a full life. The overarching narrative of Pixar’s Toy Story films is the heartbreak among adorable toys when their children grow up and forget about them. Pixar’s Inside Out characterizes the separate adorable emotions inside of one girl during a not-so-happy period in her life. And Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. showed us what fantastical imaginary world creatures get assigned to specific children to hide under their beds and scare them at night, and what happens when one monster doesn’t want to scare his assigned little girl anymore.