A Tootsie Pop of a kids movie whose tough but tasty core is trapped inside layers of semi-flavorless sugar, Netflix Animation’s “In Your Dreams” — written and directed by Kuku Studios founder and former Pixar story artist Alex Woo — isn’t quite up to the admirable challenge that it sets for itself: to make an eye-popping and hyper-creative spectacle that gives young children the framework they need to appreciate that real life can be sweeter than fantasy because of the same flaws and curveballs that make our imaginations such a valuable respite from the truth. While the moral comes through loud and clear, that’s largely because the film’s bland depiction of slumberland isn’t a fraction as well-realized — or even as fun! — as its portrayal of the middle-class disillusionment that sends its young heroes scrambling into their subconscious’ every night.
Twelve-year-old Stevie Ting (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) dreams about the simple kind of stuff that anyone who has kids and/or remembers being one will recognize for its tempting unreality. Specifically, she dreams about making french toast with her parents while “Hey Ya!” blasts from every direction; the sun is bright, the bread is fluffy, and everyone is present as can be as they all exalt in the joys of the nuclear family. Well, almost everyone is present — Stevie’s exuberant younger brother Elliot (Elias Janssen) is nowhere to be seen, even though he’s sleeping in a bed just a couple feet away from his big sis. “We’re like one of those happy families you see at the beginning of a disaster movie,” Stevie tells us. And to her mind, Elliot is the disaster.
Because, in waking life, the truth is that things haven’t been the same since the strain of raising two young kids started to wear on their parents. Once breezy musicians who made beautiful, chart-topping music together, Dad (Simu Liu) and Mom (Cristin Milioti) have grown apart. He refuses to abandon some hope of the band reclaiming their former glory, while she has surrendered to reality by working as a teacher at the local community college.
Obviously this is all Elliot’s fault, but Stevie — a natural-born fixer with a stubborn type-A personality that only softens whenever she’s around her crush — feels like it all falls on her to solve it. Now that Mom is considering a serious job opportunity in Duluth, and Dad is considering staying behind if she gets it, Stevie is desperate for anything that might hold her family together. An enchanted old book about a Sandman who promises to grant the wishes of anyone who might be able to find him in their dreams? Sure, why not. And so our young sibling heroes embark on a nocturnal journey in an effort to save their family, the magic tome binding Stevie and Elliot together so that they share the same lucid dreams.
The setup hangs together by the finest of threads, but it’s not like “In Your Dreams” has to withstand the same kind of Reddit-brained scrutiny that greeted “Inception”; if my five-year-old son is any indication, the sight of little Elliot riding his bed like a wild horse as it sails above suburban Minnesota (or wherever the Tings live) is fantastical enough to short-circuit the movie’s target audience. That approach makes sense for a story that relies on simple wish fulfillment as both its journey and final destination, but older kids — let alone parents — will be somewhat less satisfied by the manufactured wonder of Woo and Erik Benson’s script, which is as long on energy as it is short on charm.
Subsequent dream sequences include an Italian Brainrot-esque visit to a kingdom populated by sentient breakfast food, a quickfire series of PG-rated nightmares (i.e. all of Stevie’s teeth fall out), and a panicked escape from a horde of animatronic rodents who refuse to stop singing a pizza-flavored cover of The Pussycat Dolls’ 2005 classic “Don’t Cha,” a reference my kid struggled to appreciate even after I patiently explained how the iconic girl group attempted to conquer post-Carson “TRL” by combining traditional burlesque with a modern pop sound. Inspired by the rusty attractions at the Chuck E. Cheese-like arcade where Stevie and Elliot’s dad takes the kids to distract them from the state of their family, this gag is repeated several times to diminishing effect, as should be expected from a film so content with belaboring the point that its most crucial montage is soundtracked by Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” “Paprika” this is not.
Indeed, “In Your Dreams” takes such a broad approach to its premise that it can’t help but burn through its concept by the time the movie is halfway over, at which point Stevie and Elliot randomly stumble upon the Sandman’s floating kingdom — a giant sandcastle, of course — and begin to face the foibles of living in fantasy. Derivative as its design might be, the Sandman’s Escher-like home is at least interesting to look at, which is enough for it to stand out from the rest of a movie whose super round character designs and generic dreamscapes don’t resemble cut-rate Pixar so much as they do souped-up “Cocomelon.” (Two sequences briefly dip into anime-style 2D, which is so much richer and more vibrant than the movie’s default aesthetic that it feels cruel to tease us with an alternative.) On the heels of the visually arresting “KPop Demon Hunters,” it’s disappointing to see Netflix Animation throw its weight behind a project that embodies the worst tendencies of Hollywood’s post-handrawn era.
Will five-year-olds care? Probably not! After all, “Frozen” is an eyesore, and that thing has become more ubiquitous in this country than winter itself. But “In Your Dreams” is awfully facile and young-facing for a project whose greatest attributes skew towards the older end of its core demographic, and I wasn’t surprised that my son seemed to forget that we ever saw it by the time we got home from the screening.
Winsomely drawn from Woo’s own memories of growing up (and of relying on his siblings for strength at a time when it seemed like their parents’ relationship might not survive), the movie offers a sensitive take on life’s imperfections. Threadbare as the adult characters might be, Woo cultivates a lived-in sense of resignation between them, and not even a Bing Bong wannabe as desperate as Craig Robinson’s Baloney Tony — a wisecracking stuffed giraffe who smells like Elliot’s old lunchmeat and accompanies our heroes on their journey to ensure that there isn’t a single moment of quiet along the way — can distract from the pervasive feeling that Stevie’s worst nightmares are a direct byproduct of her parents’ failure to keep their own dreams alive. While the movie’s plot is a bit too sweaty for any of its insights to stick, Liu and Milioti bring a real tenderness to their roles, and the former gets to sing a lovely original song that allows the first stirrings of childhood nostalgia to echo through the deeper valleys of grown-up regret.
But life isn’t perfect, as Stevie, Elliot, and the rest of us all eventually have to learn the hard way. And sometimes the worst dreams are the ones that best allow us to appreciate the mottled joys of waking life. For most people, alas, this will probably not be one of those times.
Grade: C
“In Your Dreams” is now playing in limited release. It will be available to stream on Netflix starting Friday, November 14.
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