In Your Dreams (dir. Alex Woo)

by Jack Martin | Nov 14, 2025

Certificate: PG

Running Time: 91 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 14 November 2025

WHO’S IN IN YOUR DREAMS?

Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, Elias Janssen, Craig Robinson, Simu Liu, Cristin Milioti, Omid Djalili, Gia Carides, SungWon Cho, Zachary Noah Piser, Brycen Taylor Hall, Lizzie Freeman, Kellen Goff, Scott Menville

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Alex Woo (director, writer), Erik Benson (writer), Timothy Hahn and Greg Taylor (producers), John Debney (composer), T.M. Christopher, Nick Kenway, Greg Knowles and Ken Schretzmann (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

Two siblings (Hoang-Rappaport and Janssen) enter the magical world of their dreams…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON IN YOUR DREAMS?

While it’s true that a handful of Netflix’s in-house animated releases have gone on to immense success with critics, audiences and even awards bodies – for evidence, one only needs to look at the striking trajectory that KPop Demon Hunters has been climbing since its release earlier this year – for every one of them there’s at least half a dozen more that end up being so unmemorable that they’re ultimately unable to escape from the bottomless pit that is the streamer’s dreaded endless scroll. Many of the latter turn out to be ones that are clearly aping the storytelling and visual styles of better established animation studios, from Disney to Pixar to DreamWorks to even the slower framerate aesthetic of recent Sony Pictures Animation offerings, which suggests that Netflix audiences aren’t after something that will just remind them of the far better classics that they could be watching instead, often on other streaming platforms.

In the case of In Your Dreams, it’s a bit more complicated. The plot, characters and overall execution give it the feel of a discarded Pixar project, and in a lot of ways it certainly comes off as just that, especially since director and co-writer Alex Woo – also the co-founder of animation company Kuku Studios, with this film being its feature debut – actually used to work there, contributing to the likes of Ratatouille and WALL-E as a story artist.

But Woo’s film is, in a lot of other ways, his own tribute to the storytelling ethos of his former place of work, and while it may not be as sophisticated or even as original as the very films he once worked on, there’s enough cutesy charm to keep that family-friendly magic alive, even if it’s primarily just for the little ones.

Appropriately enough, the film introduces our central family’s dynamic via a dream that our protagonist, tween girl Stevie (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) is having, one where everything is as happy as can be with her parents (Simu Liu and Cristin Milioti) until the arrival of Stevie’s younger brother Elliot (Elias Janssen) turns it all into a literal nightmare. Things aren’t any rosier in the real world, with the siblings’ mother and father starting to drift further and further apart, especially when one of them gets a job offer elsewhere that could either force the family to move or, worse yet, split their parents up for good. Soon, Stevie and Elliot learn about the legend of the Sandman (Omid Djalili), who has the power to grant those who manage to find him in their dreams their biggest wish, and with the intent of keeping their family together the siblings slip into a shared slumber – for those wondering, there’s a vague explanation as to how their subconsciouses are able to sync up together – and enter the fantastic world of their dreams, where they must first escape the grasp of the feared Nightmara (Gia Carides) before even reaching the realm of the Sandman.

In terms of plot, it’s pretty straightforward for the kind of film that it is. There’s all the usual slapstick and crudeness meant to send young kids into fits of giggles – there’s a visible butt-crack at one point, and at another a character rather violently farts rainbows – as well as a few heartfelt moments that Woo, who co-wrote the script with Erik Benson (another Pixar veteran who worked on the story for The Good Dinosaur), handles with maturity as and when he chooses to deliver it. The characters are also no different than many other animated characters from Pixar, Disney et al, from the quirky young protagonist to the surprise villain, right down to the comic relief sidekick that’s quite irritating and largely unnecessary outside of selling a bunch of merchandise, this one being a stuffed animal giraffe toy named Baloney Tony that’s voiced by Craig Robinson, who to the film’s credit isn’t as overutilised as he easily could have been. Surprisingly, there’s also not a whole lot of creativity in the dream sequences themselves, for much of it like a land made up entirely of anthropomorphic food is pretty much how it’s described without nearly as much thought put into it as other similar concepts in, say, the Inside Out movies.

Very little of In Your Dreams is truly profound, with much of it being inoffensive fluff that little kids can enjoy just fine, but adults will be mostly distracted by how much it’s borrowing from other animated movies (and not just those from Pixar, either). But what keeps it from being a slumber-inducing experience for the latter, however, is the fact that it is very well-animated. Woo and his own army of animators clearly have a sharp sense of visual prowess in how certain dreams look and how particular characters move among a lot of these nocturnal landscapes, which while not especially outstanding in their overall design or imagination are at least colourful to look at.

Flaws aside, you can certainly see the passion that Woo has for this kind of Pixar-esque storytelling and has made a film that almost feels like a sizzle reel of every good thing he’s taken on board from his time at the animation giant. His movie may not be anywhere close to that level of quality, especially in the narrative department, but In Your Dreams is something that shows promise in how Woo and Kuku Studios can at the very least have the potential to make something that could even rival the likes of Pixar in almost every department.

Maybe next time, though, focus less on the giraffe toy farting rainbows and actually put a bit more time into creating a truly magical journey for all ages.

SO, TO SUM UP…

In Your Dreams is harmless animated fluff that takes a lot of cues from director Alex Woo’s former employer Pixar, to where it often lacks its own sense of imagination and creativity, but its strong animation and reasonably heartfelt approach radiate enough charm to serve as a watchable tribute to that studio’s storytelling ethos.