Fantasy Life

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An anxious law school dropout (Matthew Shear) stumbles into a job babysitting his psychiatrist’s three granddaughters and falls for the girls’ mother (Amanda Peet), an actress in a rocky marriage. A smart, New York-set romantic comedy co-starring Alessandro Nivola, Judd Hirsch, Bob Balaban, Andrea Martin, Zosia Mamet, and Holland Taylor. Winner of the SXSW Narrative Feature Audience Award.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT: “Fantasy Life is a New York comedy that was conceived from my years working as a “manny” for Manhattan families while I navigated mental health problems.

My character, Sam, and the kids’ mom (whom he pines for), Dianne, played by Amanda Peet, both have chronic mood disorders. To describe these characters, I drew on my history with depression and anxiety as honestly as possible; and I was eager to challenge the mental health narratives that always get on my nerves (namely hyper-tragic stories tackling suicide or hospitalization or the Joker). I sought to find drama in the more personal, everyday comic aspects of living with a mental illness.

While Sam is loosely based on me, Dianne’s struggles are very different from my own. She’s an independently wealthy mother of three girls. Her husband (Alessandro Nivola) is off on a big world tour just as her acting career has halted. She’s not working, but she’s also not doing the bulk of the child care. I became fascinated by the vulnerability of her languishing career, her wealth, her mothering. ” -Matthew Shear