Fantasy Life

Matthew Shear has spent a decade turning up in Noah Baumbach films in small parts, in 'Mistress America' and 'Marriage Story'. 'Fantasy Life' hands him the lead, and he wrote it, directed it and produced it as well. His first film behind the camera premiered at SXSW in March 2025, and it's pretty much what it looks like: a New York romantic comedy where a lot gets said and not much happens.

Sam Stein dropped out of law school and pays the rent as a paralegal until the firm lets him go. The panic attacks don't help either. His therapist of many years, Fred (Judd Hirsch), runs the practice with his wife Helen (Andrea Martin), and she's the one who offers him the oddest way out going: looking after the couple's granddaughters.

Their mother is Dianne Cohen (Amanda Peet), an actress whose career has stalled and who's hunting for a way back, married to David (Alessandro Nivola), a musician still waiting for his moment. Between afternoons with the girls and dinners in somebody else's kitchen, Sam finds something like a place of his own, and what starts as an understanding with Dianne begins to look elsewhere. The film then moves from Manhattan to Martha's Vineyard, where the family spends the summer.

Around the two of them sit the sort of supporting players who can lift a scene with one line: Bob Balaban, Zosia Mamet of 'Girls', Holland Taylor and Jessica Harper. Christopher Bear, Grizzly Bear's drummer and co-writer of the music for 'Past Lives', wrote the score, and Conor Murphy shot it. Peet produces as well as acts.

SXSW gave it the audience award in the narrative competition, and the jury handed Peet a special prize for her performance. American critics went the same way: 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and 72 out of 100 on Metacritic. Greenwich Entertainment put it in cinemas on 27 March 2026 and it stayed small, taking $620,000. British viewers are still waiting: no date, and no service carrying it here yet.

• Comedy
• Drama
• Romance