Netflix animation feature film “In Your Dreams”, which was released on last Friday, overcomes its conventional aspect via its sincere handling of story and characters. Although the overall result is still not exactly fresh, the story is fairly entertaining in addition to giving some important life lessons to its target audiences, and I appreciated that even though it does not exceed my expectation.

At the beginning, the story establishes how things have been problematic for an adolescent girl named Stevie (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport). Besides not getting along with that well with her younger brother Elliot (voiced by Elisa Janssen), she has been quite concerned about the growing strain between her parents, who once loved each other a lot but have been rather estranged from each other during last several years. While the father still tries to pursue his musician career, the mother has worked as a teacher for supporting her family, and now she considers moving to a city for a better job.

On one day, Stevie and Elliot come across an old mysterious book when they are looking for anything suitable for his book report. The book is about a mysterious entity called the “Sandman”, and it says that this entity in question will make any dream come true. While Stevie does not believe the content of the book at all, she and Elliot happen to read an incantation in the book together, and, what do you know, they later find themselves having the same dream in which they have a bit of adventure along with Elliot’s animated bed.

Once she discerns what is happening to them, Stevie becomes quite determined to meet and then make a wish to the Sandman, but, of course, there is a huge obstacle to overcome. Whenever they try to reach to where the Sandman lives, they are always blocked by a powerful entity representing nightmares, which always makes them wake up in one way or another.

As Stevie tries to find any possible way to pass through this supposedly invincible opponent, the movie also pays some attention to what is happening in her and her younger brother’s daily life. When their mother subsequently goes to that city for her job interview, Stevie becomes more concerned about whatever may happen next, even though her father keeps trying to maintain the status quo for her and Elliot. There is a brief but poignant moment when her father clumsily attempts to explain to her on the ongoing conflict between him and his wife, and that only makes her all the more anxious.

In the meantime, Stevie finds unexpected support from her younger brother. Once they come to see that their connection in their shared dream is more important than expected, they come to stick together for their common goal, and we are also amused a bit from time to time by a number of humorous moments from Elliot’s little lost doll.

Around the narrative point where Stevie and Elliot finally meet the Sandman, they surely come to learn that making a wish can be quite tricky to say the least. You will not be surprised that much if you are familiar with all those fairy stories about making a wish, but the film handles this conventional part with enough humor and style at least.

The screenplay by director/co-writer Alex Woo, who worked in a number of notable Pixar animation films such as “Ratatouille” (2007) and “Wall-E” (2008) before making a feature debut here, and Erick Benson did a fairly competent job of building the emotional drama between its two different lead characters. While she has been frequently annoyed by her younger brother, Stevie comes to accept that Elliot has indeed been a crucial part of her imperfect but precious family life, and it is touching to see how she comes to reconnect with him later in the story. In case of their parents, their little personal moments along the story are handled with thoughtful sensitivity, and that is one of the main reasons why the expected dramatic climax works.

The voice performers are solid in their respective roles. While Jolie Hoang-Rappaport and Elias Janssen effectively complement each other, Simu Liu and Christin Milioti generate some gravitas around the fringe of the story as Stevie and Elliot’s parents. Several other voice cast members including Omid Dialili, Gia Carides, SungWon Cho, and Craig Robinson are also well-cast in their substantial supporting parts, and Robinson effortlessly steals the show as Elliot’s little lost doll during several key dream scenes.

In conclusion, “In Your Dreams” is recommendable for its competent animation style and engaging storytelling, but I must tell you that it would look like a relatively subpar product if this year were not another particularly weak year for animation films. While there have been several hugely successful animation films such as “KPop Demon Hunters” (2025) and “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle” (2025), they did not make me that enthusiastic compared to a number of recent better animation films such as “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” (2023), “Robot Dreams” (2023), and “Flow” (2024), and even Pixar Animation Studios becomes rather underwhelming as recently shown from “Elio” (2025). Although I recommend “In Your Dreams” because I was entertained enough during my viewing, I also have to remind you that there are many better choices out there, and I think you will be more entertained by any of those animation films mentioned above.