In Your Dreams

• Directed by Alex Woo and Co-Directed by Erik Benson
• November 7, 2025 (US) / November 14, 2025 (Netflix)

Voice Cast

• Stevie Ting-Jolie Hoang-Rappaport
• Elliot Ting-Elias Janssen
• Baloney Tony-Craig Robinson
• Michael Ting (Dad)-Simu Liu
• Joanne Ting (Mom)-Cristin Milioti
• Sandman-Omid Djalili
• Nightmara-Gia Carides
• Chad-SungWon Cho
• Delilah-Erik Benson
• Joon Bae/Polly Zachary-Noah Piser
• Sandling 1-Lizzie Freeman
• Sandling 2-Kellen Goff
• Sandling 3-Scott Menville

Siblings travel through a world created from their own dreams to ask the Sandman to make their family whole again.

An animated Netflix film aimed at helping kids deal with the possibility of divorce through a fantastical lens? At least that’s the purpose though I think In Your Dreams misses a few things that are important. Not that it needs to be about those things but they certainly should have been addressed.

Stevie and Elliot Ting’s parents are on the verge of divorce if not already there. Stevie is handling things with great emotional difficulty to the point her adult self might have relationship issues while her brother is showing that denial is not just a river in Egypt. One is carrying the weight of the world while the other is distinctly detached from reality.

As revealed in the story, their mom Joanne had an interview for a job in exciting Duluth and got the job. Their dad Michael doesn’t want to move because the town of wherever is the place his career is. Mom just put what she wanted over what anyone else’s thoughts and that appears to be the final straw in a fractured marriage. I know there are some people who would blame the husband for not wanting to move, but when you have a spouse or significant other big life changes are a group decision. She applied for a job that would possibly cause a move. It was not the husband. They do their best to make it look like the situation is not anyone’s fault, but I can’t escape that if the mother and the father had maybe talked things out rather than mom making a demand, the possibility existed that their marriage would not be in such dire straits.

Stevie and Elliot come across a magic book where they read a spell that psychically links the two causing them to search the dreamworld for the Sandman who can make their dreams come true. I guess they know nothing about the Evil Dead films to understand reading spells from strange books is not a good idea.

The visuals are very entertaining. We have Breakfast Land and how the travelling bed functions and everything have a fluid and random nature like one might encounter in a fantasy. What bothers me is that there are recurring dreams. Not that people don’t have them but it’s almost like the writers think dreams are a movie you can pop in such as Stevie mentioning a recurring dream of Breakfast Land. If such were the case with her then she should have been able to skip very near to the Sandman. If these is a unique aspect of the world of In Your Dreams it is never shown.

There’s a character called Tony Baloney (love the name) who’s the dream friend of Stevie and Elliot. In reality he’s a stuffed animal that Elliot owns and treasures. As a character his whole purpose is to be the occasional bit of comic relief and the cavalry when the children really need it most. This is supposed to be a story of growth and he does not help there.

Weird gets mistaken for funny. A common issue among writers. Weird can be funny but in and of itself is not funny. Weird is just weird. Tony Baloney and the kids’ general oddities are just weird but they’re not funny. Work it into a joke or just tone it down to focus on emotions.

Stevie and Elliot battle the occasional nightmare and roadblocks while struggling to reach the shortcut solution to all their problems. Tony is just comedy in those moments. Being generated by the mind of Elliot (and maybe Stevie) he never provides insight into them. The majority of what they encounter comes from the psyche of the siblings, but the viewer gets little insight into them nor does it help in their growth. It is all just obstacles.

Nightmara is the scary character of In Your Dreams. Her and the Sandman once worked hand-in-hand until a falling out which lead her to trap him within a whirlwind. Intentionally or not they subvert expectations by having the Sandman not be the lesson teacher of the story. Normally the heroes arrive at their destination, and their goal pulls it all together. Things take a turn when we learn the villain is the Sandman. What he offers is perpetual fantasy though looking back on certain things you really do not see that offered via another perspective.

What it all means is that Nightmara is not the baddie but the benevolent looking Sandman is. No hints of that but more like “Guess what?” She is a tough love character using dreams to prep children for harsh reality. Great but it was just thrust on the audience.

TYou could assume the book finds people and that’s all but confirmed in an end credits scene. But it’s treated rather lightly and considering the Sandman’s motivations for not wanting a kid to have bad dreams and always to be happy no matter what it seems a bit antithetical. I even think the book itself should’ve been destroyed as part of defeating the Sandman and saving the girl. After all the chant from the book was what caused them both to travel through the dreamworld, but it simply falls out a truck and then gets tossed in the trash.

I don’t think this started from a poor place. I just believe they didn’t think everything through. This possible divorce is caused by the mother putting her wants over those of everyone else. No scenes or lines pointing that out yet it is unmistakable. I know that was not the point of the story but it needed to be addressed. Dad has been working for years to make it as a musician and the kids are happy in their current city but mom wants to work in exciting Duluth.

In relationships people don’t always think. They should but sometimes you react before you realize you’ve done something not the correct way. There’s no point with In Your Dreams where mom says, “I have kids and I’m building a life with someone I have to think of them too.” At least nothing that hit camera. Given the ending you could create some head cannon that occurred but there’s nothing to say it occurred. In the words of the daughter “they’re still trying to figure things out” with dad having caved and decided to start a new band in Duluth where the mother is taking the job. I don’t know if that marriage is strong.

All that is not to say I hated it. It did come off as a bit mid-tier for me. It missed a few things I thought were important to hit or at least display. You don’t even need to get into a deep discussion of it all with the parent characters. You just need to give it some level of consideration. A fantasy world where kids work out their real-world problems has been done plenty of times. I wouldn’t call this a bad entry in that genre but it’s not one of the better ones. My problems with this movie come down to someone clearly being at fault here but escaping blame. That doesn’t need to be central to the movie but maybe the daughter or the son lashing out in just ONE scene because mom wants to leave while dad wants to stay was warranted. Then the rest of the time it’s all about loving them and wanting the family to stay together. Just one scene! One line! SOMETHING!

In Your Dreams is a movie whose heart was in the right place, and it does send a good message to children when their parents are having difficulties. It misses the mark when there is a clear villain by not actually identifying the clear villain. Not a bad movie, but it could’ve been better.