Presented with an unusual opportunity by his therapist (Judd Hirsch) and his receptionist wife (Andrea Martin), frustrated out-of-work Sam (played by the film’s writer-director Matthew Shear) takes a babysitting job for $300 a night for a wealthy couple. Watching their three daughters presents Sam with some challenges—but not as much as managing his employers’ rocky relationship. David (Alessandro Nivola), a rock bassist and childhood acquaintance of Sam’s, and his wife Dianne (Amanda Peet) live off a trust fund as they pursue their creative passions: she is an actress whose career has been interrupted by motherhood and David’s rocker mentality is not as unhinged as he would like. Their marriage is steps away from destruction—and Sam’s pleasant demeanor and sympathetic ear reveal the cracks that bring the household crumbling down.
While Shear’s characterizations come from a long line of anxiety-plagued Jewish protagonists, FANTASY LIFE succeeds as a dramatic portrait of people struggling in midlife with anxiety and as a comedy by injecting an undercurrent of absurd humor. Everyone in his multigenerational cast of great Jewish performers gets an opportunity to shine, but in the final scenes, it is the nuanced work of Peet, marking her return to the big screen after a decade-long hiatus, that steals the show. Winner of Best Narrative Feature and a Best Actress Jury Prize at SXSW 2025.
Director Bio: View on IMDB
Matthew Shear was a break-out star of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Noah Baumbach’s MISTRESS AMERICA and teamed up with Baumbach in his WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (2014), THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (2017) and MARRIAGE STORY (2019). FANTASY LIFE is his debut feature film as a director.
Sponsor: Diane Aboulafia and Peter Shapiro
