Slumberland (2022)

Where Slumberland truly shines is with its cast. While Slumberland is one of Barkley’s first feature credits, along with Spirited, the young actress already shows she can deal with a huge range of emotions. And while Slumberland’s story can feel bloated, Barkley’s Nemo is the emotional anchor that holds everything together. The biggest surprise of Slumberland, though, is Momoa, who embraces a dad energy we didn’t know he had.

Lawrence’s latest is fine for its don’t-over-think-it standards, and while it’s glossier than it is deep, it’s at least charted through with a roller coaster’s engineering. There’s something comforting about a movie that has the true ease of a fantastical dream, and for “Slumberland” that fleeting excitement may be enough.

Orienteering from an unsure script, Slumberland’s uninventive visual language dithers around in unreality while leaving its feet firmly planted in the saddest parts of the real world.

Slumberland is nothing if not an exhausting roller-coaster of missed opportunities, virtually all of which stem from the film’s lack of a solid emotional foundation.

For all the surface wildness of Lawrence’s Slumberland, it’s about as rule-following a family pic as you can find.