REVIEW: An Outstanding Amanda Peet Anchors Anti Rom-Com ‘Fantasy Life’

Amanda Peet’s breakout role in The Whole Nine Yards (2000) made her a darling of indie film and studio dramedies for over a decade. She’s since, to the chagrin of cinema, spent most of her time in celebrated television dramas. Fantasy Life, Peet’s first film as producer, is her first film credit in a decade. It’s also being released just days after the actress revealed she’s in remission following a private battle with breast cancer. It’s a good week to be Amanda Peet.

Fantasy Life centers on Sam (writer/director Matthew Shear), whose existing struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder has become strained by the loss of his paralegal job. Fortunately, family friend Fred (Judd Hirsch) is a therapist. Even more fortunately, Fred’s wife/receptionist Helen (Andrea Martin) takes pity on Sam and secures him a job babysitting their granddaughters. At the same time, their son, David (Alessandro Nivola), performs with his band.

Sam isn’t exactly built for child-rearing, but he does well enough to endear himself to the children and David’s wife, Dianne (Peet), an actress struggling to rebuild her career years after motherhood and her own mental health struggles forced her into an early retirement. Dianne is extremely wealthy thanks to her parents, Lenny (Bob Balaban) and Toby (Jessica Harper), which only exacerbates the creative struggles already putting great strain on her marriage. Feeling equally broken pushes Sam and Diane together, but their lives are too intertwined for the result to be anything but messy.

Amanda Peet and Matthew Shear shine in an otherwise overstuffed cast.

To get the obvious out of the way, this is a truly impressive ensemble for an independent film from a first-time director. That’s without even mentioning minor appearances by the likes of Holland Taylor, Zosia Mamet, and Sheng Wang.

But the sheer strength of the film’s cast comes dangerously close to being its undoing. Talents like Hirsch and Balaban are wont to fill any space they’re given, and Shear seems content to sit back and let them. It’s plenty entertaining, but also serves to distract from the quieter moments that make Fantasy Life so exceptional. Scenes filled with multiple scene-stealing performances start to lose their way, and the packed climax of the film largely only lands as well as it does thanks to its own abruptness.

Thankfully, these moments are spaced far enough apart to be relatively minor annoyances. The moments with Sam and Diane are truly fantastic. Peet is outstanding in the lead role, which makes it all the more impressive that this is her first film performance in ten years. Plenty of actors would struggle to elicit empathy for a character whose trials largely involve drowning in her own privilege. Still, Peet manages to bring sympathy even to her character’s most unsympathetic moments.

Fantasy Life goes for the unexpected. 

Shear’s performance is also excellent. The actor effortlessly slides into Sam’s neuroses, capturing the character’s anxieties while also conveying how he charms those closest to him. His chemistry with Peet is compelling, and he effectively sidesteps the majority of the common challenges actors face when casting themselves as the lead in their directorial debut.

Fantasy Life is aware of the genre expectations most viewers will bring to the table based on the premise. It subverts them to satisfying effect, squeezing out interesting character moments and dramatic beats by not leaning into the romantic comedy many are expecting. It’s through this that the film sneaks in its most profound moments.

This is, at its heart, a film about fantasy. Both the nice fantasies we aspire to and the insidious fantasies we create to kick ourselves down in our darkest moments. Shear’s script centers on mental illness and is plenty frank about the uphill battle the heroes face. These relationships are messy. The outcomes are unpredictable. But the film is also not without optimism, and Shear makes a satisfying case for what can happen when one puts in the work.

Fantasy Life opens in select theaters on March 27th.