‘Fantasy Life’ Review: Writer/Director/Actor Matthew Shear Takes His Own Anxieties And Turns Into A Triple Threat Filmmaker – SXSW

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It is probably no accident that among Matthew Shear‘s acting credits are no less than four movies directed by New York filmmaker extraordinaire Noah Baumbach, or that one of his most recent is another angst-ridden Jewish comedy, Between The Temples.

Clearly he has spent his downtime on those sets soaking up the atmosphere and the comedic beats in preparation for his writing/directing debut, Fantasy Life premiering at the SXSW Festival today in the Narrative Feature competition.

Assembling a dream cast of actors who know how to deliver this kind of New York Jewish-centric character-driven comedy that Woody Allen trademarked and others like Baumbach have also travelled in so successfully, Shear actually seems to me to be more of a modern day Richard Benjamin who also turned into a fine filmmaker in his own right.

That seems to be the trajectory here except Shear is clearly cribbing from his own life and experience with depression, anxiety, and self-admitted mental illness to craft, however loosely, a character teetering on the edge and a story close to his own world.