Take a second to consider what number of skilled alternatives must slip via your fingers earlier than you significantly thought of taking a babysitting job on your therapist.
That ought to provide you with a way of how a lot Sam (Matthew Shear) has going for himself in “Fantasy Life.” A once-promising regulation pupil whose crippling nervousness has slowed his authorized profession, Sam finds himself laid off from a agency that was already asking him to do little greater than alphabetize long-obsolete packing containers of information. With payments piling up and a deep sense of purposelessness that hasn’t improved since he took a psychological well being break from Fordham Regulation Faculty practically a decade in the past, a proposal to babysit his shrink’s three granddaughters whereas their dad performs bass with Gov’t Mule looks as if a possibility that’s depressingly worthy of his time.
After all, such a possibility doesn’t come up out of skinny air — you must be a part of an incestuously nosy social circle first. Sam solely started seeing his therapist as a result of he’s a good friend of his mother and father, so the physician’s spouse/receptionist already is aware of that the younger man is out of labor. As Sam discretely tries to slide out of an appointment, she reminds him that he used to play together with her now-grown son David (Alessandro Nivola) when their households belonged to the identical racket membership a long time in the past. The younger couple is in a pinch for childcare after their nanny state of affairs fell via, and Sam can’t fairly discover a purpose to say no to a straightforward gig that pays $300 an evening.
Watching the three daughters is a manageable activity, however Sam’s actual problem is navigating the complicated relationship between his two employers, David and his spouse Dianne (Amanda Peet). Two rich, engaging creatives who dwell off of large belief funds whereas pursuing their passions and elevating their kids in opulence shouldn’t have too many issues, however they’ve inevitably discovered methods to create a number of. A beanie-loving rocker, David thinks that his lifetime of lavish domesticity is conserving him from the lifetime of hedonistic journey he craves. Dianne sees him as inadequately sympathetic to the sense of purposeless that she feels after her appearing profession took a backseat to motherhood. Their marriage is a tinderbox, and Sam seems to be the anxious, people-pleasing spark that lights your complete factor aflame.
The nervous manny isn’t most individuals’s thought of an attractive extramarital affair candidate, however he’s every little thing Dianne wants to clean the style of David out of her mouth. He’s variety, empathetic, an amazing listener, and utterly enamored together with her in a approach that the previous film star hasn’t felt in years. Because the household prepares for a summer season journey to Martha’s Winery with their prolonged household — and, naturally, Sam’s shrink — the 2 fall into an excessively intimate friendship that exposes so lots of the bonds holding up this household for the fantasies that they’re.
A primary-time writer-director, Shear has beforehand appeared in 4 Noah Baumbach motion pictures (“Marriage Story,” “The Meyerowitz Tales,” “Mistress America,” and “Whereas We’re Younger”). And “Fantasy Life” wears that affect on its sleeve. A neurotic portrait of inventive class New Yorkers who do every little thing of their energy to drown out their very own privilege with self-inflicted issues, “Fantasy Life” pulls from Baumbach as liberally as Baumbach pulled from Woody Allen. It doesn’t get any factors for originality, however executes its premise adeptly sufficient to render that criticism irrelevant. The script is persistently trustworthy and attention-grabbing with out wading too far into cliches, and crisp modifying ensures that scenes by no means final a sentence longer than they should. And whereas “Fantasy Life” follows within the footsteps of artists who made careers out of anxious protagonists, its portrayal of hysteria demonstrates an understanding of the dysfunction that feels extra trendy than its predecessors.
Shear inhabits Sam with sufficient neuroses to make Alvy Singer appear like George Clooney. There’s no technique to spin his nervousness as charming, he’s only a man burdened by psychological sickness to the purpose the place you start to really feel responsible for having fun with a movie about his existence. The dearth of an try at glamorization saves the movie, and by the top you’re concurrently grateful that you simply skilled the story and completely happy to by no means be answerable for this character’s issues ever once more.
For a movie whose setup guarantees salacious drama, “Fantasy Life” finally ends up being quite constrained in what it delivers. However the story by no means leaves us with a way that something is incomplete, as Shear eloquently portrays the ways in which near-misses can nonetheless really feel like cataclysmic life occasions. When a lot of our lives are spent fantasizing about what might be, it will definitely turns into inconceivable to separate the act from residing itself.
Grade: B+
“Fantasy Life” premiered at SXSW 2025. It’s at present in search of U.S. distribution.
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