Slumberland

Slumberland is a 2022 movie that premiered on Netflix. It was based on the Little Nemo comics by Winsor McCay.

Nemo lives with her father Peter in a lighthouse. By day she hears the horns, and at night she listens to bedtime stories about his best friend, the outlaw Flip. She resolves to take over her father's job when she is old enough. But then one night, during a storm, her father doesn't return. Nemo has a nightmare about a great octopus swallowing him.

In the city, Nemo struggles to adjust living with her estranged uncle Philip. Philip represses his grief about losing his brother, in favor of trying to make space for his niece. Nemo gets a lead in the dream world that Flip, who comes into her dream searching for a map, can help her find pearls which grant wishes. She hopes to use them to get her dad back.

See also Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, an animated adaptation of the comics infamous for its troubled production.


 * Adult Fear:
 * Why Counselor Arya calls Philip after . As she puts it, Philip also admits that he doesn't know how to parent a child, while dealing with the grief of losing his brother and angry at Nemo for not giving him a chance.
 * The scene where Nemo runs away. Philip can see it's pouring rain outside and he has no idea where she would go. Then Carla tells him Nemo would most likely return to the lighthouse. Which means she's on the water, in the middle of a thunderstorm.
 * Alpha Bitch: Subverted. When some of the kids gossip about Nemo, they sound very sympathetic on hearing that her father died.
 * Armor-Piercing Question: A variant; Nemo tells both Flip and.
 * Bittersweet Ending: Eventually, Nemo has to accept that her father has died, and he's not coming back to her. Even in dreams, she knows that it's not real. Philip also comes out of his shell to . But because
 * Break the Cutie:
 * Happens to Nemo at the start of the film, where her father dies. She becomes withdrawn and refuses to sail anymore, or interact with anyone.
 * Philip reveals that this happened when his brother Peter got married. Even though he knows that Peter was an adult and free to marry the woman he loved, Philip still felt abandoned, and gave up his dreams of grandeur and adventure.
 * Chekhov's Gag: Flip mentions offhandedly that a lot of Canadians dream about flying on giant geese. When it turns out the last door before the sea of nightmares is in one of these dreams, Nemo gets the idea to "borrow" a goose named Bob from the dreamer.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Philip's lockpicks. Knowing that what she takes with her to bed will appear in the real world, Nemo asks politely to borrow them for school.
 * Pig's ability to swallow and regurgitate objects. As Agent Green points out,
 * Cool Uncle: Philip wants to be this, but he knows that he is a boring person. He's also not equipped to take in his preteen niece. When he does lose his temper at her, he admits that he is at a complete loss on how to handle her grief, and his. The end of the movie shows that, he has become this role, with confidence.
 * Face Your Fears: Philip is revealed to be afraid of the water, or sailing, which makes his buying a boat for Nemo a sweet gesture. That his brother drowned at sea didn't help.
 * Gender Flip: Nemo was a young boy in the original comic strip, but has been reimagined as a girl here. It's implied that her father Peter is a stand-in for the comic strip Nemo, since Flip was his best friend as a child in the dream world.
 * Hidden Depths: Jamal is revealed to be growing mushrooms in the school's boiler room.
 * Nice Guy: Jamal, the Indian kid with the Motor Mouth. He befriends Nemo on seeing she's withdrawn and opts to include her in his friend group. The end of the movie shows them hanging out once she has.
 * Reasonable Authority Figure:
 * Counselor Arya is sympathetic about the fact that Nemo is acting out on her grief, . As she puts it, Nemo is not in trouble for
 * Agent Green is not a bad guy, despite what Flip says. When she arrests Flip and Nemo, she gives the latter a succinct explanation about how the dream world works, and why it's a bad idea to go to the Sea of Nightmares because as far as the Bureau knows, the pearls are a Snipe Hunt and a myth. She wakes up Nemo, telling her that she's dreaming and facing nightmares for a reason..
 * Relative Button: It's revealed that
 * Shoo the Dog: Realizing that
 * Stealth Mentor: Implied with Agent Green at the end of the movie; she congratulates Nemo for
 * Tomato In The Mirror: Flip refuses to believe that