Comedy movie Fantasy Life: the babysitter, with Alessandro Nivola and Amanda Peet

Fantasy Life, the movie's plot

Fantasy Life is the comedy and romance movie coming out. The plot follows Sam Stein (Matthew Shear) who loses his job as a paralegal and suffers a panic attack in public. When he shows up at his psychiatrist Fred's (Judd Hirsch) for a session, the latter's wife offers him an unexpected job: babysitting the three granddaughters. Sam accepts, without really understanding what he's getting himself into.

The girls are daughters of David (Alessandro Nivola), a rock bassist with ambitions that exceed his talent, and Dianne (Amanda Peet), an actress whose once promising career has stalled. When David leaves for a tour abroad, Sam and Dianne discover an unexpected connection. Both share a history of unease, and feel lost in their lives. Sam joins the family for the summer at Martha's Vineyard, finding himself in a house with the woman - for whom he has feelings - her husband, the three girls and all four grandparents – including his own psychiatrist.

"What are intrusive thoughts?" Fred asks Sam during a session, in the released trailer. "I think I suffer from internalized anti-Semitism" he responds. "Now let's talk about medication" Fred declares. "You have to be a bit strict with them" David advises Sam, after hiring him as babysitter, referring to his daughters.

Fantasy Life, the movie's cast

Matthew Shear has acted in While We're Young, Mistress America and in the tv series The Alienist. Amanda Peet has worked on episodes of Brockmire and Your Friends and Neighbors.

Alessandro Nivola has participated in The Brutalist and in Kraven the Hunter, where he played the villain Rhino. Also present are Bob Balaban, already seen in Asteroid City and in the series The Gilded Age; Zosia Mamet, daughter of playwright David Mamet, known for the role of Shoshanna in Girls, and seen recently in episodes of The Flight Attendant and The Dropout.

Matthew Shear is also director, at his feature movie debut, after directing an episode of The Alienist: he conceived the movie starting from his personal experience, because for years he worked as a "manny" (male babysitter) for Manhattan families while dealing with personal problems: "I was going through an existential crisis and an anxiety disorder - he declared - The screenplay comes precisely from those memories, transformed into a comedy that isn't afraid to show its characters' vulnerability".

Fantasy Life, the critics' reviews and the movie's release date

The movie debuted at the South by Southwest Film & TV Festival 2025, where it won two important awards: the Audience Award for best narrative movie and the Special Jury Award for Amanda Peet's performance. The reviews were positive. For Deadline, "the casting is perfect. Peet, absent from cinema in recent years, finally returns in great style with a role she makes her own, giving this drifting soul true gravity and emotion".

For Awards Radar "Fantasy Life is a promising directorial debut for Matthew Shear, with Amanda Peet in one of her best performances stealing the scene". For The Hollywood Reporter "the movie marks a promising debut for writer and director Matthew Shear".

The movie releases in American theaters on April 3, 2026.