It’s been a while since I’ve seen a film that carries a quiet echo of mumblecore (that genre focused on social awkwardness, naturalistic dialogue, and an indie sensibility). Coincidentally—and fittingly—Matthew Shear, who appeared in the mumblecore-adjacent auteur film Mistress America (2015) by Noah Baumbach alongside Greta Gerwig, is the one bringing it back into fashion.
His film is so quintessentially New York and Jewish that it invites comparison to Woody Allen, Jesse Eisenberg, the aforementioned Baumbach, and Nicole Holofcener—the latter perhaps the closest stylistic match. Still, Shear’s Fantasy Life (2025), which won the Narrative Feature Audience Award at the 2025 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film & TV Festival, feels distinctly of its time, following his title character, Ben, as he navigates mental health challenges - a diagnosis of OCD and anxiety with panic disorders.
Within the first ten minutes of the film, Shear’s Ben, who is Jewish, sits in his therapist’s office (played by Judd Hirsch), voicing fears of internalized antisemitism. These fears stem from his intrusive thoughts about Jewish people he encounters in the city, and the harsh things he tells himself upon seeing them (“kike whore,” “hooked nose”). He’s deeply unsettled by what this might mean. Hirsch’s character, full of acerbic wit and pragmatism, matter-of-factly responds by suggesting a different cocktail of medication.
After this scene, the film shifts dramatically. Perhaps it’s Hirsch’s absence for much of the next hour, but the tone becomes slower, quieter, and, in many ways, more raw and intimate. We’re introduced to Hirsch’s son and daughter-in-law’s family, as Ben is offered a job babysitting for them through the office manager, who turns out to be Hirsch’s wife.
Ben’s one night babysitting gig evolves in a more of a “manny” role over the course of a year with him growing closer to Amanda Peet’s character and the girls he’s taking care of.
Amanda Peet is Everywhere (Thankfully) & Depression Sucks
In a very meta turn, Amanda Peet’s Dianne Cohen plays a once-rising 2000s film star whose career stalled around the time she began having kids. She’s married to an aging hipster musician, David (Alessandro Nivola), whose ever-present beanies recall U2’s The Edge, but her own life feels stuck. Their dynamic is staid and, while not unloving, feels under-nurtured, and at the very least, hardly the picture of a “healthy couple.” They speak past one another, and David has taken to day-drinking Tom Collinses, something Dianne keenly and incisively notes is “very goyishe.”
A bout of depression, possibly mixed with anxiety, helped trigger her acting career pause over a decade ago and now seeps into her day-to-day, making even getting out of bed feel impossible. She relies on her parents to take the girls to school, while Ben handles pickup.
Ben quickly picks up on her loneliness and, as someone grappling with his own mental health challenges, recognizes the contours of her depression. They begin watching films and series together. It’s initially innocuous, though there’s a subtle undercurrent: a hint of a crush from Ben, met with moments of physical affection from Dianne.
Side note: Amanda Peet also stars in Your Friends & Neighbors on Apple TV+, where in Season 2 her character’s arc centers on the upheaval of menopause and a career that has come to a defining, shattering halt, forcing her to redefine herself. It’s a serious look at a woman entering her early 50s, trying to find her footing in a community of 1%ers where many wives invest heavily in cosmetic enhancement. It stakes the claim that to age gracefully and retain your features is a radical move in today’s world.
The film plays with the “will they or won’t they” dynamic between Dianne and Ben. His feelings register as a kind of extended childhood crush, while hers read more as a stand-in for the friendship she lacks—as someone who, we learn, has no real friends. The film brings this thread full circle in its denouement, in a beautifully quiet scene with Holland Taylor, playing a therapist (and notably the real-life partner of Sarah Paulson, Peet’s close friend).
“Do you really think your privilege makes you less deserving of care?”
Taylor’s character urges Dianne to sit with that question and to interrogate why she believes it. But first, she has to do the work. Ben does too, though perhaps to a lesser degree. There are no guarantees that Dianne and David will make it, but they remain bound—to each other through their parents, their children, and something that may matter more than individual happiness and that is, their shared tribe.
Beth’s Outtakes
Anyone catch that Bette Midler’s daughter Sophie Von Haselberg played David’s sister? If you blinked, you have missed her.
Zosia Mamet’s small scene wasn’t enough. Needed more of her in this!
The book Dianne is reading when Ben joins her on the couch is a very famous 1946 book by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl which documented his experiences as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp
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