Take a moment to think about how many professional opportunities would have to slip through your fingers before you seriously considered taking a babysitter job for your therapist.
It should give you a sense of how much sam (Matthew Shear) have gone for itself in “Fantasy life. “Sam is once a promising team student whose devastating anxiety has slowed down his legal career and is dismissed from a company that already asked him to do a little more than alphabetizing long obsolete boxes with files. With bills that stacked up and a deep sense of purpose that has not improved since taking a mental health break from Fordham Law School almost a decade ago, an offer seems that babysitter his shrinkage’s three grandchildren while their father plays base with Gov’t Mule as an opportunity that is depressing worthy of his time.
Of course, such an opportunity does not occur from thin air – you must be part of an incestuous nosy social circle first. Sam just started meeting his therapist because he is a friend of his parents, so the doctor’s wife/receptionist already knows that the young man is without work. When Sam discreetly tries to slip out of time, she reminds him that he used to play with his now adult son David (Alessandro Nivola) when their families belonged to the same racket club decades ago. The young couple is in a pinch for childcare after their grandson’s situation fell through, and Sam can’t really find any reason to say no to a simple gig that pays $ 300 per night.
Looking at the three daughters is a manageable task, but Sam’s real challenge is to navigate the complex relationship between his two employers, David and his wife Dianne (Amanda Peet). Two rich, attractive creative living by massive trust funds while they pursue their passions and raise their children in abundance should not Have too many problems, but they have inevitably found ways to create some. David is a miserable rocker and believes that his life with lavish domesticism keeps him from life on hedonistic adventure that he longs for. Dianne sees him as insufficiently sympathetic for the feeling of meaningless that she feels after her acting career took a back seat to motherhood. Their marriage is a Tinderbox, and Sam turns out to be the worried, people-harsh spark that lights the whole thing.
The nervous Manny is not most people’s idea of a sexy except marital business candidate, but he is all that Dianne needs to wash the taste of David out of her mouth. He is kind, empathetic, a great listener and completely delighted with her in a way that the former movie star has not known for several years. When the family prepares for a summer trip to Martha’s vineyard with their large family – and of course Sam’s shrinkage – the two fall into an overly intimate friendship that reveals as many of the bands that hold up this family for the fantasies as they are.
A first time author-director has shearly appeared in four Noah Baumbach Movies (“Marriage History”, “Meyerowitz stories”, “Mistress America” and “While We are Young”). And “Fantasy Life” carries it impact on the sleeve. A neurotic portrait of Creative Class New Yorkers that does everything to drown out their own privilege with self -destructed problems, “Fantasy Life” pulls from Baumbach so liberally when Baumbach pulled from Woody Allen. It does not get any points for originality, but conducts its premise enough to make that criticism irrelevant. The script is consistently honest and interesting without wading too far into clichés, and sharp editing ensures that scenes never keep a meaning longer than they need. And while “Fantasy Life” follows in the footsteps of artists who made careers of troubled main characters, its depiction of anxiety shows an understanding of the disorder that feels more modern than its predecessors.
Shear lives in Sam with enough neuroses to make the Alvy singer look like George Clooney. There is no way to spin his anxiety as charming, he is just a man loaded by mental illness to the point where you begin to feel guilty for having a film About his existence. The lack of an attempt at glamorization saves the film, and in the end you are at the same time grateful that you experienced the story and are never happy to be responsible for this character’s problem ever again.
For a movie whose attitude promises Salacious drama is “Fantasy Life” to be quite limited in what it delivers. But the story never leaves us with a feeling that everything is incomplete, since shear welfare depicts the ways that almost miss can still feel like cataclysmic life events. When so much of our lives are spent on fantasizing about what might be, it will eventually become impossible to distinguish the action from living itself.
Rating: B+
“Fantasy Life” premiered at SXSW 2025. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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