Imaginary | 2024 | PG-13 | – 2.6.5

Why is “Imaginary” rated PG-13? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “some violent content, drug material and language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a few hugging and kissing scenes, some teen flirting, a scene of a woman being killed by a giant bear mostly off-screen, many scenes of children being convinced to do dangerous things including nearly impaling a hand on a nail and cutting off a thumb, a house fire without injuries, discussions of mental illness and childhood trauma, discussions of imaginary friends, a teen being rude to a woman, a teen taking a pill that he thinks is Molly, a teen nearly drinking liquor, and at least 1 F-word and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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A family re-locates to the home where the mother (DeWanda Wise) has happy memories of her early years with her parents. Shortly after arriving, their young daughter (Pyper Braun) discovers a stuffed bear in a basement room and develops a bond with it that will have dangerous consequences. Also with Taegen Burns, Betty Buckley, Tom Payne, Veronica Falcón, Samuel Salary, Matthew Sato and Alix Angelis. Directed by Jeff Wadlow. [Running Time: 1:44]

Imaginary SEX/NUDITY 2

 – A man and a woman kiss in a few scenes. A man and woman hug and lie in bed together in a couple of scenes. A teen boy approaches a teen girl and asks to show her around.
► A woman wears a tube top that reveals cleavage and her bare back and shoulders. A woman wears low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage and her bare shoulders in several scenes. A teen girl wears a cropped and low-cut top that reveals cleavage, and her bare abdomen and back in several scenes. A woman wears a tight-fitting camisole that reveals the outline of her breasts, cleavage and bare shoulders in a few scenes.

Imaginary VIOLENCE/GORE 6

 – A woman is grabbed by a large creature from behind a door; she screams and we see claws and teeth, she is slammed to the floor and pulled behind the door where we hear more screaming and a loud thud, and a large pool of blood seeps from under the door. A woman breaks out of a small door in a dark house, moves through a hallway as a deep voice calls for her, blood smears on the walls from her hand, she finds a pair of pliers with something bloody in them (possibly a tooth) and she tries to wake someone sleeping in a bed as a man enters the room, he transforms into a giant bug and lunges toward her; the woman wakes up with a gasp and we see that it was a nightmare. A young girl runs up a flight of stairs in a basement and a man goes back to a door where the child had been; something grabs the man’s arm from inside the door and we see a bright light being shown in his eyes (his eyes turn white) and we are told that he had a “cognitive break with reality.” A woman is pulled back toward a door by a creature that flashes bright lights into her eyes; a young girl sets a flammable liquid on fire and the creature is engulfed, recoils back through the door and disappears; the woman, a teen girl and a young girl run out of the house and watch as it becomes consumed by flames. A woman faces a giant bear with sharp claws and teeth, she sinks into the floor and the bear moves close to her; the woman stabs the bear with a pair of scissors and it recoils. A woman is trapped in a room with family members that speak with distorted voices and have marble-like eyes and they tell her that she has to stay in a place to save her family; a teen girl hits a creature in the room with a field hockey stick and we hear a crack.
► A woman stabs herself in the hand with a pair of scissors (we see her with a bloody bandage on her hand later). A young girl pulls a fence board out of a fence and lays it on a table with a nail pointing up; she raises her hand over the nail and brings it down toward the nail but a woman pulls it away before she impales herself (we see a bloody scratch on the child’s arm and blood on a bandage later). A teen boy chases a bear’s pull string in a dark hallway and when he steps on the string, it pulls the bear close to the teen, it transforms into a giant bear with many sharp teeth and claws and it roars over him as he cowers in a corner (there are no injuries). A young boy in a video, talks about his imaginary friend telling him to do something that would hurt and we see that the child has cut off his own thumb; a woman then tells us that the child disappeared after that video was made and has never been found.
► A teen girl is closed into a room where we see a young girl standing in the corner; when the child turns toward her we see that her eyes are discolored and she speaks with a strange altered voice, a giant bear stands in the room and lunges toward the teen just as she is pulled back through a wall and to safety. A young girl paints the outline of a small door on a wall in a basement and she collects items in a small dish, tries to strike a match to burn them, but cannot do it and asks someone unseen to help her. A woman and a young girl play hide and seek in a house; the child goes to the dark basement, we see flames burning in a furnace, we hear something that sounds like deep breathing, we hear throaty growling coming from the shadows, she finds a small door and coughs from a cloud of dust when she opens it and finds a tattered stuffed bear inside. A woman hears the sound of a ball bouncing in a hallway and down stairs into the basement and she follows it down into the dark basement. A young girl says that her imaginary friend says, “He’s behind you” and we see a figure standing in the shadows behind the woman.
► Two women and a teen girl go through a glowing door and enter a place that resembles an M.C. Escher-type world with numerous staircases and doors on multiple levels and seemingly going nowhere; we hear children’s voices in the distance. A man lies in a bed in an assisted living room and he becomes agitated when his adult daughter visits and talks to him about something that happened when she was young; the man grabs her arm and yells at her until a nurse enters the room and calms the man down. A woman charges out of a room and slams into another woman in the hallway knocking her down and a teen girl holds the first woman as they both cry (no injuries are seen).
► A young girl talks to a woman in a counseling session about her imaginary friend and that she was afraid when he told her to do something that would hurt her; the child yells at the friend and cries and we hear the child’s altered voice speaking as the friend as they argue. A teen girl is alarmed and runs out of the house when she sees someone standing outside the house and looking in. A woman and a teen girl search a house and neighborhood for a young girl that is missing. A man and a woman and a young girl play hide and seeks from the child’s imaginary friend; the woman hears noises and looks over the side of the bed where they are hiding and peeks under the bed when she is startled to see the girl on the other side of the bed (a joke played on her) and she screams. A woman hears a young girl talking to someone in her room and the person responds causing the woman to become alarmed. A young girl talks to her imaginary friend in several scenes and we hear her voice slightly deeper and gravely speaking as if it is the friend (a stuffed bear). A teen boy urinates in a toilet and we hear the trickle; he startles and sprays urine on the floor and his shoes when he sees the shape of a stuffed bear under a towel on the sink next to him. A woman finds some of her artwork torn in her studio.
► A teen girl tells a teen boy not to touch liquor in her father’s home bar, but the boy doesn’t listen and breaks a bottle on the floor. A young girl is upset when a teen boy takes a jar of bugs from her and she tells him not to touch her stuff and maybe her stuffed bear will eat him.
► A young girl tells a woman that her stuffed bear might eat her for lunch. A young girl tells her stuffed bear that he should eat a teen boy. A teen girl is rude to her stepmother, argues with her and says hurtful things to her in several scenes. A woman yells at a teen girl. A young girl complains about a character in a children’s book being icky and scary and that she fears what it will do to another character; she says, “We should kill him.” A teen boy hears a voice repeating, “Hands off my stuff.” A man describes having an imaginary friend that he would talk to about building bombs together. A young girl talks about her mother and seems sad about an event that left her with a burn scar on her arm (we do not know what happened).
► A young girl pulls dead insects off a tape trap and puts them in a jar.

Imaginary LANGUAGE 5

 – At least 1 F-word, 3 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, 2 mild obscenities, name-calling (awful, icky, terrorist, psycho, idiot, mean, fake, bad, lonely, scared, dumb, brutal, selfish, crazy old lady, rambling, self-absorbed), exclamations (screw it up), 1 religious profanity (GD), 5 religious exclamations (e.g. oh my God, God, Holy [scatological term deleted]). | profanity glossary |

Imaginary SUBSTANCE USE

 – A teen boy holds a plastic bag containing pills and offers a teen girl some and we see him with a pill on his tongue (he seems to think they are Molly, but we later find out they are allergy meds). A teen boy takes two bottles of liquor off a shelf and drops one on the floor shattering it, and a teen boy offers to take a teen girl to a bar where they don’t check IDs (the girls stepmother intervenes).

Imaginary DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Step-parenting, childhood trauma, death of a parent, mental illness, imaginary friends, secrets, memories, otherworldly things.

Imaginary MESSAGE

 – Some childhood memories are better left in the past.