“A Need to Create” | Matthew Shear, Fantasy Life

After losing his job as a paralegal, Sam Stein suffers a panic attack and stumbles into a job babysitting his psychiatrist's three granddaughters. The girls' mother, Dianne, is an actor whose once-promising career has stalled; she's in a difficult marriage to David, a rock bassist.

When David goes abroad on tour, Dianne and Sam discover an easy rapport as well as a shared history of mental illness. Sam joins Dianne's family to babysit for the summer on Martha's Vineyard, and he ends up in a house with the woman he pines for, her husband, the three kids, and all four grandparents, including his psychiatrist.

Screening Tuesday, May 6, at 7:15 p.m., at the Music Box Theatre, as part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, Fantasy Life is an irresistible, heartfelt comedy — and an exciting feature filmmaking debut by writer-director-star Matthew Shear, best known for TV series The Alienist and his collaborations with Noah Baumbach. Shear will be in attendance at the screening for a post-film Q&A.

Ahead of Tuesday’s screening, Shear graciously took the time to answer this year’s CCFF filmmaker questionnaire. Below, his individual responses.

How did you first become interested in filmmaking? What was your path toward directing your first film?

I started acting around 2008 and I’ve always been very interested in what everyone else is up to on a movie set, all of the jobs. I think that curiosity about filmmaking (and a passion for watching lots of movies) created my path to directing.

What inspired you to make the film you're bringing to the festival?

I was having trouble finding a job as an actor so I started writing a screenplay as a creative outlet. I wrote a leading role for myself and, in the end, discovered an uncomfortable interest in directing the project too. In other words, the film was inspired by a need to create in a difficult career moment.

Tell us about a film that you consider a guiding influence (whether it has informed your overarching vision as a filmmaker, directly informed the title you're bringing to the festival, or both).

The film An Unmarried Woman by Paul Mazursky was a particularly dear influence for me for Fantasy Life. The film follows a middle-aged woman (played by a wonderful and complex Jill Claybaugh) navigating her New York life after divorcing her husband.

The tone of the film is warm and urbane, and it’s ability to swing from comedy to subtle drama is very human (and was a useful touchstone). Also, I never asked our lead Amanda Peet to watch An Unmarried Woman but, to me, her performance in Fantasy Life has an uncanny connection to Jill Claybaugh’s (particularly in their respective therapy scenes!).

Tell us about a location that's held significance to the film you're bringing to the festival: a setting where filming took place, a geographic area that provided a source of inspiration, or another type of space that comes to mind for you in thinking about the film. What made this place so special?

An important location in Fantasy Life was the New York home of Amanda Peet and Alessandro Nivola’s characters. I based the setting on the apartments of some very wealthy families I used to babysit for. I wanted the viewer to say, like I did, “Oh shit this family is rich.”

My production designer Katie Fleming and I kept pushing and searching and not settling despite our budget. We landed on a stunning four-floor brownstone in Brooklyn Heights (thanks to an owner sympathetic to indie film!). On our initial location scout, Katie, my DP Conor Murphy, and I entered the front door and wanted to dance; the location told the story of who these New Yorkers are and how money shapes their freedom and neurotic malaise.

The theatrical experience brings us together to celebrate artistic experience and expand our horizons as human beings. Tell us about a memorable theatrical experience from your life.

I went to a showing of Being John Malkovich at Nighthawk Cinema in Brooklyn towards the end of Covid. I had just gotten over some kind of chest cold (it wasn’t COVID) and I had a residual symptom of coughing uncontrollably whenever I laughed.

Anyway, I hadn’t seen Being John Malkovich in many years and I’d forgotten how incredibly funny it is. I was coughing to the point where I should have left. I personally would have thought I had COVID if I was in the audience, and I’m also the kind of cranky moviegoer who’d be very annoyed by the noise… but I just couldn’t leave. 

Fantasy Life screens Tuesday, May 6, at 7:15 p.m., at the Music Box Theatre, as part of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, with filmmaker Matthew Shear in attendance for a post-film Q&A.