A good trait in a writer-director-star is that while they might write a good part for themselves in their movie, they write an even better part for somebody else. That’s the case in Matthew Shear’s charming New York comedy “Fantasy Life,” which features Amanda Peet as a past-her-heyday movie star who seems a lot like Amanda Peet.
Shear plays Sam, a recently laid-off paralegal in his 30s prone to panic attacks. In the opening scene, he’s consumed by anxiety while eating a black-and-white cookie in a Manhattan independent bookstore, which checks off several boxes on your “New York movie” bingo card in one fell swoop.
His therapist, Fred, (an amusingly growly Judd Hirsch) isn’t much help. But out in the waiting room, where Fred’s wife Helen (Andrea Martin) works as the receptionist, Sam does get a lifeline of sorts. Helen’s son David (Alessandro Nivola) has a gig that night as a fill-in bass player for Gov’t Mule, and needs a babysitter for his three daughters. (The phrase “fill-in bass player for Gov’t Mule” perfectly captures the middle-aged loucheness of David.)
Sam is easily overmatched by David’s daughters, but he likes Sam enough to keep hiring him. That puts Sam into the orbit of Dianne (played by Peet), David’s wife, who was in “movie-star territory in the early ‘00s” but now struggles to get an audition. When people approach her on the street for an autograph, they mistake her for Lake Bell (which Peet says often happens to her).
Sam develops a crush on Dianne, and so does the movie. Peet, in her first movie in a decade, perfectly captures Dianne’s frustration and exhaustion at seemingly being forgotten by the world, and then the spark inside her that revives under the attention of this kind, neurotic “manny” in her house. I’ve seen “Fantasy Life” described as a “rom-com,” but despite Sam’s feelings it’s not really that. It’s more of a gentle, empathetic comedy about two lost souls connecting at random in the big city and being better for it.
Sam and Dianne’s growing friendship irks David, who’s in sort of a nebulous separation agreement with his wife. Then Sam is asked to watch the kids on a family vacation up in the Hamptons, where Shear ports in another pair of terrific veteran character actors, Bob Balaban and Jessica Harper, to play Dianne’s parents. Balaban is in particular really funny as an aggrieved rich white man who clearly watches too much Fox News (“I’m a minority!” he exclaims.)
I’ve seen “Fantasy Life” described as a “rom-com,” but despite Sam’s feelings it’s not really that. It’s more of a gentle, empathetic comedy about two lost souls connecting at random in the big city and being better for it.
It all comes to a head at a tense dinner table scene, and just seeing all these great actors bounce off each other is pure pleasure. Shear knows he’s got a stacked cast and is happy to cede the spotlight to each of them. But he holds his own when he needs to, keeping the audience’s sympathies with the good-hearted Sam, in way over his head.
At 85 minutes plus credits, “Fantasy Life” doesn’t outstay its welcome, but it’s enough to make an impression both for Shear as a new filmmaker to watch and for Peet as a familiar face to see a new light. Maybe now people will come up to Lake Bell on the street and think she’s Peet.
“Fantasy Life” is now in theaters. In Madison, it’s playing at AMC Fitchburg 18.