Images courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment
FANTASY LIFE— 3 STARS
Some of the best acting moments in any given film can happen without dialogue. A facial expression or a piece of body language can mean as much as a multi-page monologue. Those performers who can nail that moment are onto something special in their roles. When possible, Fantasy Life, from writer-director-star Matthew Shear, seeks to make the most of those wordless character statements.
There’s a great scene towards the end of Fantasy Life where Amanda Peet’s out-of-work actress and struggling middle-aged wife, Dianne Cohen, is speaking with her therapist, Dr. Greene, played by the divine, sagacious treasure of Holland Taylor in an extended cameo. Dianne arrives at this appointment at a personal crossroads, and they’ve just finished discussing Dianne’s lengthy on-and-off and exhaustive history of prescription drug usage for depression and anxiety. When Taylor shifts the conversation from history to the present and asks about friends for Dianne—something that has been a challenge for the character in the past—Amanda Peet slips in the slightest of smirks.
LESSON #1: THE MEANING OF A HIDDEN SMILE— It’s done without eye contact with the camera or Holland Taylor. It’s a smile not big enough to cause blushing or a redirected response from the therapist. Yet, we, the viewers, catch it immediately. Thanks to the entirety of Fantasy Life that has happened before this penultimate scene and, more precisely, who Dianne talked to in the reception area before entering the appointment, we know exactly what, and more importantly, who mentally triggered Dianne’s slight lift in shame. It’s the only person, seemingly in years, who has been truly friendly to her outside of her immediate family. In this moment, Dianne’s unhinged side messed that prospect up, and she knows it.
The person in question and the source of that minute break of character is Matthew Shears’s Sam. Calling his own number, Shears plays a thirtysomething failed paralegal who, through a mutual connection with another psychiatrist played by The Fablemans Oscar nominee Judd Hirsch, was hired by Dianne’s travelling rockstar husband David (Alessandro Nivola of The Brutalist) to be a caretaker for their three pre-teen daughters to make ends meet. The bespectacled, clumsy, and extremely introverted Sam suffers from acute panic attacks, though he’s deemed “functional” enough to be around kids.
Far out of his domesticated element, Sam is, at first, outmatched by the girls (the debuting Callie Santoro, voice actress Romy Fay, and Riley Vinson of Mr. Crocket, respectively) with their varying degrees of spunk and sass, but eventually wins the family over. Where Sam finds his greatest affinity for the “manny” job is connecting with Dianne, who is managing the household and her dwindling career on her own while David is overseas on tour. When the kids are in bed, the two adults growing to become the center of Fantasy Life find themselves bonding over Battlestar Galactica and bowls of granola, so much so that Sam has developed an unspoken crush on Dianne.
LESSON #2: “THIS CAN’T BE A THING”— Now, a broader movie with this kind of setup would likely gladly allow Fantasy Life to slide into the forbidden romance zone. One look at Amanda Peet’s ageless beauty and anyone would understand the crush. Even with the atypically dorky Sam as the proposed tryst, a bout of swoon would be created by a different version for the sake of spiking drama within the attractive middle-aged female protagonist. When Sam and Dianne do share a momentary kiss, the encounter doesn’t linger or radiate to the point of ecstatic flutters. It stops with Dianne’s maturity and the line, “This can’t be a thing.” There’s no horny male arm-twisting to keep going, and no weakened resolve from a woman in the throes of passion. With the frankest gratefulness, there’s an almost immediate respect and understanding that the one kiss was what it was and no more were needed to convey where they stand.
LESSON #3: LONELINESS IS MORE THAN A LACK OF INTIMACY— That’s a tremendous place of wisdom and mellowness for a film like Fantasy Life to occupy. Sure, it may be a secret that cannot last forever, especially when Sam travels with the extended Cohen family (which widens the ensemble to include Christopher Guest regular Bob Balaban, theater mainstay Andrea Martin, original Suspira fave Andrea Martin, and Sophie von Haselberg, also seen presently in By Design) to spend the summer at their resort home on Martha’s Vineyard. A revelation and blow-up may still arrive, but the true fracture within Dianne is deeper than a lack of romance. The kiss is not unlocking new thinking in Dianne; it’s the overarching loneliness from all facets of her life, be that her absentee spouse or the lack of acting credits in over a decade. While the will-they/won’t-they romance floats over Fantasy Life, it’s not the driving force, and that is greatly appreciated.
Fantasy Life tells this year-long story with seasonal time jumps that skip some of the traditional rising action and falling action sections of a plot arc. Those leaps, while cutting to the chase in their own way, can be disorientating and remove the audience from the likely fallouts as to how each chapter ends before the next transition. This is another way Shears is showing favor to reactive body language over big culminating speeches that slam the door on scenes and telegraph emotions. It’s up to actors to deliver the new mood, and we have to pick up on it. In a way, the title might be overselling the comedy and wonderment for this rom-com therapy session of a movie.
In this respect, with almost no musical score and thin aesthetics, Fantasy Life breathes and beats through Amanda Peet and Matthew Shears. As Shears overplays the awkwardness and underplays the pining, his character is harder to assess, but the gentleness of his stature and his soft eyes are undeniable. You never want to see him hurt. That said, this film is a magnificent showcase of Amanda Peet. She’s played everything under the sun in Hollywood, from the ditz to the temptress. She’s always had allure, but this is new dramatic depth for her, as evident by that aforementioned smirk and everything she conveys before it—and after it— to outclass everyone else on screen.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1382)
from Review Blog https://everymoviehasalesson.com/blog/2026/3/movie-review-fantasy-life
