Is dreaming so bad? This is the thesis proposed by In Your Dreams, an animated children’s film that sets up The Sandman as a force of evil. How? Why? Well, The Sandman prefers dreams to reality and people need to live in reality.
Yeah, but do they? Do they, really?
I have long been an advocate of “as long as there is no negative societal impact, be whomever you like, do whatever you like.” If that means living in a world in which you are artificially happy without causing harm to anyone else, what’s the big deal? And lemme tell ya’, there are a fair number of people out there -especially in government- of whom I wish they were living in a fantasy world instead of taking out their frustrations on the public. Y’all know that -by now- we all should have universal affordable health care, right? Right?!
I digress.
In Your Dreams is an animated tale of a family in crisis. They don’t much look like they’re in crisis, especially after an opening with dad cooking French Toast that is about as delightful as family films get. But this Minnesota quartet has money issues. Dad (voice of Simu Liu) is a struggling musician. Mom (Christin Milioti) is a teacher who might just have a university job in Duluth. Oooooooo. Duluth.
Dad doesn’t want to go to Duluth. You’re not alone, pal.
While younger brother Elliot (Elias Janssen) is oblivious, his older sister Stevie (Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) senses there’s trouble; she’s worried about her parents splitting up. So naturally, Elliot sneaks into the forbidden section of a bookstore and steals a magical volume about The Sandman. Before long, Stevie and Elliot are riding a bed-Pegasus to the stars. It’s all very magical and silly.
The deal is that if they can locate The Sandman through a forest of nightmares [and, yes, there are many images of nightmares in this film; please use judgment on how old your child should be to watch such], then their dreams can come true. Is there a downside? Of course there’s a downside. Nobody has their dreams come true without a downside. The big question to me is the one I raised above: What is the harm 
in dreaming? Because this film seems to think there is harm in dreaming and like it to explain more.
Of course, this film also suggested the world of sand was one of wonder and delight [cue Annakin Skywalker]. The film also chose to play “Mr. Sandman” again and again instead of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” This is just a mistake of monumental proportion, especially if you want an adult audience for this picture.
The biggest problem here is The Sandman (Omid Djalili) is such a monumental disappointment that one wonders why the children bothered finding him. He’s like a sandy cut-rate Dumbledore; this wizard couldn’t preside over a school of fish, much less Hogwarts. I liked some of the family moments and everything that had to do with an anthropomorphic giraffe named “Baloney Tony” (Craig Robinson), but very little else about this bland and iffy-messaged family film.
There once was a girl named Stevie
Whose happiness she couldn’t retrieve-y
For the ‘rents had a spat
And instead of opting “brat”
She opted for the land of make believe-y
Rated PG, 90 Minutes
Director: Erik Benson, Alexander Woo
Writer: Erik Benson, Alexander Woo, Stanley Moore
Genre: Is this what kids actually think?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Spoilsports
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Dreamers
