He’s a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.
In Imagine That, Evan Danielson is good at what he does, which is making investments for people. He understands stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, and all manner of securities. But when it comes to parenthood, all he can say is “I didn’t know how bad I’d be at it.” And he is abysmal. He is so consumed by his job that he can’t seem to make time for his daughter, Olivia.
When it is his week to have her and he has pressures at work, it seems like he’s doomed to fail with her yet again. He ends up with her at his office, where he thinks she will entertain herself. But Olivia isn’t alone. Through her security blanket, she has access to the magical land of her imaginary friends, the princesses Moppida, Koopida, and Soppida… and Queen Qwali. These friends seem to have amazing insight into the companies Evan is involved with. Soon, he has to play with Olivia to garner this information and advance at work.
It all is rather predictable, but that isn’t a bad thing in a family film. Eddie Murphy’s humor plays well in this story, which keeps it entertaining even if we know what the outcome will finally be.
Early in the film Olivia tells us in voiceover that her father used to be a king—the King of Somewhere—but he got lost in the Kingdom of Nowhere. In Nowhere Land, she tells us, everybody wants to be king. That is pretty much Evan’s problem. He wants to be king, but the kingdom he wishes to rule isn’t the one where his crown is. He looks for success which is defined by money and title and the biggest office. That success seems to be in his reach, but what happens to the relationship with Olivia? Will he be happy being the king of Nowhere Land? Or can he return to being the king of the place where he will be welcomed as the king that he already is?
The film makes ample use of covers of Beatles songs. One of those is “Nowhere Man,” which plays while Evan spends a long night studying stocks. It is obvious, as Olivia noted at the beginning of the film, that Evan is lost. It is obvious that Evan embodies the “Nowhere Man” that John Lennon implored to “please listen; you don’t know what you’re missin’.”
How we understand success can make a lot of difference in how much we enjoy the world. For Evan, his pursuit of the success of the investment world has stripped him of the joy of fatherhood. He doesn’t see the worshiping gaze of his daughter as a prize worth more than all the gold or bonds or profits he deals with every day. It will take a drastic readjustment for him to see that the success he is seeking will not lead to happiness.
Jesus once pondered the choices people make: “What will it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?” That question is central to Imagine That. That question is central to the choices most of us have to make everyday in trying to balance the various responsibilities of life. We all sometimes get lost trying to be the king in Nowhere Land. Imagine That shows us the kind of magic that will return us to our rightful place.
