Alex Woo's In Your Dreams, Netflix's latest top-shelf animated feature, is a stunningly creative tribute to the imagination of children. It thoughtfully explores childhood vulnerability for a moving journey full of magic and heart.
Childhood makes for interesting cinematic material for several reasons. Children are vulnerable and small in a massive, sometimes dangerous world, attributes fueling everything from kid-friendly adventures like The Goonies to horror outings like IT, IT: Chapter 2, and IT: Welcome to Derry. Whether bullies, caustic parents or teachers, or other social issues, they're ripe for dramatic presentation.
For most people, childhood is also the most imaginative era, full of daydreams, creativity, and sometimes nightmares. Whether it's wild adventures, magical dreams, or terrifying nightmares, it's a veritable blank check for creativity.
In Your Dreams deftly combines these two trajectories in a wild and engaging, family-friendly outing that connects to real childhood fears and manifests them through the wild creativity of the dreamscape. It's a little overstuffed (unlike its adorable stuffed animal, Baloney Tony), with a few disjointed parts. However, it remains a gorgeous and engaging animated feature that connects to the profound vulnerabilities of childhood in innovative ways.
In Your Dreams Is a Beautifully Imaginative Ride
In Your Dreams follows Stevie (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport), a kind-but-stern 12-year-old who is less than thrilled by the endless parade of chaos brought by her younger brother, magician hopeful Elliot (Elias Janssen). Dad (Simu Liu) is a loving father but can't bear to give up dreams of rock stardom, while the ever-practical Mom (Cristin Milioti) wants stability. She has a stable teaching opportunity that would relocate the family to Duluth, causing growing tension within the once-idyllic family.
In a shop filled with used trinkets and treasures, Stevie and Elliot discover the book The Legend of the Sandman, which promises that if someone reads the book's inscription and finds the Sandman in their dreams, he'll grant their deepest wish. The pair come to realize they're able to lucid dream, and that their dreams are shared, sparking a pursuit of the Sandman (Omid Djalili) to save their family, but with dangerous potential consequences for the protagonist, Stevie.
Given that In Your Dreams takes place in a children's shared dreamscape, it should be as expansive and creative as children's dreams often are. On that score, the film excels wildly. The Sandman's arena is large and original, while the broader dream world is full of clever and well-executed remnants of childhood.
Sentient bed steeds, ball pit rivers, massive hedge mazes, and talking stuffed animals, like Baloney Toney (voiced by Craig Robinson), creatively populate an engaging world that feels rich in detail. The animation style is gorgeous, with top-shelf CGI for the bulk of the film alongside a few memorable anime snippets when Stevie and Elliot truly team up in the dream world.
In Your Dreams Needs Cleaner Focus, but the Performances Excel
The film's central performances are consistently memorable, with Jolie Hoang-Rappaport delivering a complex emotional core as the besieged protagonist Stevie. She's relatable, witty, and goes to great lengths for a simple end: to keep her family together. Elias Janssen delivers a high-energy performance as the well-meaning but mischievous Elliot (though the role is written a little too thick with annoying-younger-brotherness at times).
Simu Liu embodies Dad with amiable warmth alongside a slightly dysfunctional immaturity, balanced out by Cristin Milioti's loving practicality. The family dynamic is well-crafted to challenge Stevie in ways many may relate to (given the familial strain and threat it imposes), but with enough context and good-natured elements that the resolution feels fitting.
The film's journey is well-paced and satisfying, but the exact conclusion comes too abruptly. Viewers watch the family earn said event, sure, but it's too sudden and quick a final scene after such a surreal family outing. A scene or two of extra development would pad that landing. There's also a bit of tension between the film's desire to showcase sidekicks like Baloney Tony and the relationship between Stevie and Elliot.
In Your Dreams is an altogether engaging and worthy outing from Netflix Animation, featuring a stellar central performance, imaginative narrative and worldbuilding, and beautiful animation work. There's a conflict in the balance of the different elements it wants to highlight, and the ending is too abrupt relative to the pace that precedes it (and the stakes of the rest of the journey), but it's a beautiful adventure nonetheless.
Final Rating: 8/10
In Your Dreams is streaming on Netflix.
