Now available to stream on Netflix, In Your Dreams is an animated feature film that follows a small family as its parents face marital woes. Twelve-year-old Stevie (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) loves her family dearly, even though she constantly butts heads with her chaotic little brother Eliot (Elias Janssen). Her father (Simu Liu) struggles to maintain a career as a professional musician, but refuses to give up his dream. Meanwhile, mother (Cristin Milioti) begins to feel the weight of the additional financial responsibilities she takes on, as she is the only spouse/parent with steady work. This stress on the marriage reaches a turning point, leading the parents to decide on a separation.
As her family situation worsens, Stevie and her brother Eliot often escape their painful reality through their dreams. And at one point, the two siblings discover they can share dreams. In their dream world, they discover that a seemingly benevolent figure, the Sandman (Omid Djalili), may be able to protect their family best.
Written and directed by Alex Woo, who co-wrote the movie with Erik Benson and Stanley Moore, In Your Dreams envisions and creates a dreamworld that is magical, hilarious, bizarre, and sometimes scary. It isn’t so terribly frightening that child audiences will have nightmares afterward, but there is some imagery and surreal elements that make it hard for children not to be baffled.
That said, at the heart of this movie is an emotional and loving story of children who are pained by their parents’ problems and the fear that these troubles will destroy or change the things they love about their parents and their life together. These themes might cause some younger children to ask a lot of questions about marital and parental woes, and what happens when parents either separate or divorce.
All of these elements sound scary for parents, but these discussions are inevitable. Even though some parents/married couples may not separate or divorce, the children will have friends and acquaintances whose parents are having problems. For all its silliness, craziness, and creativity in the dreamworld, In Your Dreams reflects the genuine troubles faced by children who might see their parents end their marriages. This more serious element of the story makes Stevie’s and Eliot’s journey all the more compelling.
In Your Dreams is a fun and exciting movie with a beautiful heart at its center. It is a film I highly recommend for families, but one in which parents should be prepared for further discussion after watching.