Forget fairy tales: New animated film 'In Your Dreams' gets real about family conflict

By Danielle Broadway LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -When director Alex Woo pitched the animated Netflix film "In Your Dreams" to actor Simu Liu, Liu was fascinated by the opportunity to show a real family that argues. "The way that families are depicted, especially to a lot of children, is this idea that families are always happy, always smiling. They never fight. And it's just not true," said Liu, the China-born Canadian star of Marvel movie "Shang-Chi" in 2021. "I think it's important that kids have imagery of families that aren't perfect." "In Your Dreams" opens in theaters on Friday. The adventure-comedy film was animated by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Director Woo started as a storyboard artist at legendary animation studio Pixar and worked on films like "Ratatouille," "WALL·E" and "Cars 2." The plot centers on the journey of sister Stevie, voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport, and brother Elliot, voiced by Elias Janssen, in search of The Sandman, who can magically save their parents' marriage. Emmy winner Cristin Milioti as Mom and “The Office” actor Craig Robinson as the stuffed animal Baloney Tony round out the voice cast. Milioti, who won a Grammy for the album "Once," said her duet with Liu, on a song that shows the strained couple in harmony, was a highlight. “I think that song is really great and it is such a beautiful moment in the film too,” she said. Hoang-Rappaport's character grapples with the discovery that there is no magic solution to real-life problems. Stevie thinks, "I can fix this on my own and everything can be fixed…I can keep my family together," the teen actor said. But Stevie's journey ends with the same truth Liu wanted to show: Real families fight, and fixing things takes more than a dream. Life does not always go the way that people plan. (Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Rollo Ross; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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