In Your Dreams initially gives Stevie (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) the problem that her family’s all fine until her parents give her a brother, Elliot (Elias Janssen), but soon there’s bigger fish to fry, given that as she’s heading for being a teenager, her dreams that are turning into nightmares, such as the family house falling apart.
After Elliot finds a book entitled Legend of the Sandman, about the giver of dreams, Stevie has another house collapse encounter, but this time, allowing Elliot’s bed to gallop out of the house… but it’s a dream, right?
Well, what might be real is that their mum, Jenn (Cristin Milioti – USS Callister: Into Infinity: Black Mirror), is potentially taking a job miles away in Duluth. Will the whole family move there, or are they splitting up and just living with Dad, Michael (Simu Liu – Last Breath)?
One thing I do know is that you can’t escape reality by dreaming, as it’ll all still be there in the morning. Plus, you dream a lot overnight, but you only remember the dreams you have just before you wake up, anyway.
Plus, while Elliot’s toy, Baloney Tony (Craig Robinson), talks about taking control of your dreams, I remember the instruction to check your watch, from Richard Linklater’s Waking Life. I rarely wear one, but I tried this in a dream, saw that the hands were weird and all over the place, and that indicated I was dreaming! However, you just have to REMEMBER to do that each time. NOT easy.
For Stevie and Elliot, they’re trying to lucid-dream at the same time, ultimately with a view to their parents never splitting up, but what follows is all rather predictable and insubstantial.
In Your Dreams is nice to look at for the CGI, but not much else to shout about. Young kids will probably enjoy it, but there’s not much for adults, apart from a brief refrain of Metallica’s Enter Sandman, late on in the film.
One question: Why is this film using a crazy-wide 2.55:1 aspect ratio? Even if this was in the cinema, there’s no screens that go that wide, so it just results in additional black bars.
The most bizarre dream I ever had happened quite recently. Firstly, I’ll state I hate anyone wearing shoes on the carpet in my house, so if you’re coming in, you leave them in the front room! I also don’t like lots of people coming in the house in general, anyway. Tradesmen/women is generally about it.
Hence, for this dream, I was upstairs in my man cave, when I got a message from a friend, stating that a guy he sort-of knew was coming round to my house. No idea why, but I had no reason to let them in, so that was that.
Next thing I knew, that guy and TEN of his friends were all stomping up the stairs, along the landing and were now at the door of my man cave… What the hell?! I chased them out, and saw that the landing and stairs were now THICK WITH MUD! As I came down to the lounge, that was now TRASHED! And before doing this, they’d all brought chairs from somewhere outside, as if to sit down and have a chat for an hour before doing all this!
And then I woke up… but as I left the bedroom, I went to the landing, and the mud was still there! And the lounge was still the same! I went into the kitchen and that had ALSO been trashed! All the cupboard smashed off the wall!!!
…And then I woke up… AGAIN! I slowly walked to the landing… and it was fine. I should’ve realised then that I HAD actually woken up, because what always happens is that you need the toilet. However, just before that, I still checked the lounge and kitchen before doing anything else! But they were fine 🙂
There is a brief mid-credits scene, which is best-served by only reading this AFTER you’ve watched the film… or just watch that as well!:
Thanks to our friends at Netflix for the screener prior to release.
In Your Dreams is on Netflix from today, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Check out the trailer below:
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 90 minutes
Release date: November 14th 2025
Studio: Netflix
Aspect Ratio: 2.55:1
Score: 3/10
Directors: Erik Benson, Alexander Woo
Producers: Timothy Hahn, Gregg Taylor
Screenplay: Erik Benson, Alexander Woo
Music: John Debney
Cast:
Stevie: Jolie Hoang-Rappaport
Elliot: Elias Janssen
Baloney Tony: Craig Robinson
Dad (Michael): Simu Liu
Mum (Jenn): Cristin Milioti
Sandman: Omid Djalili
Four-Year-Old Stevie: Hailey Magpali
Joon Bae/Polly: Zachary Noah Piser
Nightmara: Gia Carides
Sausage Dog: Jorge Diaz
Blueberries: Quinn Minichino Eakins
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.