Netflix’s In Your Dreams isn’t just another “anything-goes” tour through kid logic to understand the power of dreams. It’s a family coming-of-age stitched with needle drops, ’80s DNA, and tenderness for oddball humans and quirky plush alike, navigating challenging times of separation during childhood and how parents have to keep things together despite growing apart. So even though times may be uncertain, family is what you make of it. That understanding and empathy were something writer-director Alex Woo wanted to ground his directorial debut in. This animated film takes place in a lived-in reality, while also featuring other characters sprinting through the surreal. And it was that balance, between the mess and the magic, that gives the film its pulse.
Netflix © 2025
Woo built the movie on a childhood memory that still stings. “I woke up one morning and found my mom at the front door with her bags packed,” he said. “This movie is very much about me reconciling the fact that life is not perfect, there’s a lot of messiness in life, but there’s also a beauty in that.”
That honesty shapes how the film treats separation without choosing sides. “I think in our early conversations, it was really important to show that, you know, no one is at fault,” Simu Liu, who plays Dad, said. “Therefore, there’s no bad guy or good guy in whatever is happening between mom and dad, you know? And as often happens, I think, in our lives. And I don’t know, I don’t think any family is perfect.”
Because “In Your Dreams” is set in the dreams of a child, the dreams Stevie and Elliot experience aren’t random, they’re based on journals kept by the crew. “When we started the movie, we gave everybody on our crew a dream journal,” Woo said. “A lot of the dreams in the film were actually based off dreams our crew had.”
For the kids’ leads, seeing those dreams animated was a jolt. Recalling her favorite dream sequence to record, Jolie Hoang-Rappoport, who plays Stevie, said, “I think my favorite one was the one where they’re fighting Frank, the giant teddy bear, she said. “They’re like flying around on the bed, and they’re trying to attack him. When I read it the script, it’s hard to visualize what it’s going to look like. Seeing it come to life, larger than life, with the anime girl power-up sequence, I wasn’t expecting that.” Elias Janssen, who voices Elliot, added, “Elliot’s bed comes to life and they’re flying through the sky, it shows how creative these dreams can be,” he said.
Enter Baloney Tony, a one-eyed stuffed giraffe voiced by Craig Robinson, already flirting with cult status. “We wanted him to look like one of those cheap plushies,” Woo said, recalling a stained childhood teddy he and his brother nicknamed with sibling cruelty. The joke is that love clings to imperfect things; the lesson is that the imperfection is the point.
So when it came to finding the voice of Baloney Tony, it was very much Woo letting Robinson do what he’s good at. “We were cracking jokes back and forth. And Alex let us improv. And all of that,” he said. “I’m excited for people to see it. And it was fun being Elliot’s best friend. And the enemy of joy.” Joy being Stevie who was so annoyed by Elliot and his stuffed giraffe that she hid him behind a fridge.
While we can expect many laughs, the heart of the character wasn’t planned. “I didn’t go in thinking, ‘I gotta bring that heart,'” Robinson said. “We just kind of rolled it out there.”
While “In Your Dreams” is an original piece, it is not without nods and homages. From the sonic winks of Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” to set the music-forward tone to his love of films he grew up with, Woo made this a film about kids processing the complexities of their parents’ separation as much as it was a love letter to the 80s films he grew up with. “I grew up in the ’80s,” Woo said. “E.T., Labyrinth, Goonies, Back to the Future.” One image is a direct love letter: a bed soaring across a moon. And then of course there’s the soundtrack. “Stevie Nicks,” he said. “She has that very famous song ‘Dreams.’ It just felt so appropriate.”
As much fun as the film is to look at, it was also a challenge to make. Sessions were far from easy, as it took multiple recordings. So many changes happened over the course of 9 years to make it from concept to completion. You’re doing AD and matching the exact lip flaps,” Hoang-Rappaport said. “They’ll piece it together in front of you, and you’re watching to see if you failed in real time,” Liu remembered, how fluid things stayed over the years. “The ending changed four or five times,” he said.
That calibrating paid off, especially with the parents. “We had to calibrate it, oh, we went to a seven last time? This should be a five now,” Cristin Milioti said.
Even fear gets nuance. “She had to be scary,” Gia Carides said of voicing Nightmara, “but I wove in some loving, earthy, grounded wisdom.” She also imagined a charged past with the Sandman. “Maybe they dated. Maybe divorced,” she said. “Like, he’s my ex-husband.”
And the film refuses a fairy-godmother fix. “It’s not bibbidi-bobbidi-boom, problem solved,” Hoang-Rappaport said. “It’s look around you and hold on to each other.”
In Your Dreams plays like a mixtape of the moments that shape us: the song that catches in your throat, the nightmare you keep having, the stuffed animal you’ll never throw away. It trusts kids—and adults—with complexity and comfort at once. Life won’t always go to plan. The movie’s answer isn’t denial or a magic reset—it’s love in the attempt, and someone’s hand to hold when it gets messy.
“In Your Dreams” streams exclusively on Netflix on November 14, 2025.
