"Imaginary Friend" Movie Review: Sometimes It's Not All in Your Head

Runtime: 86 minutes

Release Date: June 2, 2012

Rating: PG

Director: Richard Gabai

"Imaginary Friend" opens with a young girl playing outside with her best friend. As they run around the yard and frolic in the grass, it quickly becomes clear that Emma is real but her little friend is a figment of her imagination. After her abusive father kills her mother, the movie jumps to the present day. Emma (Lacey Chabert) now lives with her husband Brad (Ethan Embry, "Vacancy") who seems to act just like her father once did.

Emma inherited a large sum of money from her parents' estate, and Brad has control over everything. There's something about how she spent time in an institution and how she can barely function. She seems content to just stay at home and paint, but after some time, she decides that she's ready to get back into the world again. When Brad discovers that Emma no longer needs his help and that he doesn't have control over her accounts, she suddenly starts seeing visions of her former playmate, who may or may not be real.

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm guessing that "Imaginary Friend" is a Lifetime movie. It just tends to play that way based on the acting and the sets. As someone who appreciates a good television movie, I won't hold that against it. It's actually a fun little movie in fact. I made a comment to my boyfriend about how I wanted it to end, and damn if it didn't actually end that way. It's one of those films that has several endings so there's one twist, then another, and then it has a completely different twist at the very end. I get the feeling that this is one of those films that I’ll see when flipping through the channels and instantly want to stop and watch again.