USA 91 MINS
FEB 28, 2026 6:00PM
TRAILER
Director: Matthew Shear
Writer: Matthew Shear
Stars: Amanda Peet, Matthew Shear, Alessandro Nivola
Country/Language: USA/English
After getting laid off, a thirty-something paralegal in New York starts babysitting his psychiatrist’s three granddaughters and falls for their mother, an actress in a rocky marriage.
Amanda Peet and Matthew Shear star in this gently affecting, delicately comic SXSW Audience and Special Jury Award winner about the unlikely bond between a young neurotic Manhattan lawyer and out-of-work actress in midlife awakening. After losing his job, Sam stumbles into kid-sitting for the children of Dianne whose marriage to a restless musician is slowly fracturing. Over a Martha’s Vineyard summer, what begins as a paycheck turns into a soul-sensitive tightrope of longing, projection, and self-recognition. Shear’s auspicious directing debut features a career-defining turn by Peet, plus a scene-stealing ensemble including Judd Hirsch, Andrea Martin, Bob Balaban, and Alessandro Nivola, capturing the wry absurdity of privilege and the uneasy line between fantasy and lived reality.
Matthew Shear
Shear was born in New York City. He is Jewish and grew up in a Reform Jewish home. He graduated from St. John’s College—Annapolis in 2008. His film career began the following year with a bit part in director Ang Lee‘s comedy-drama Taking Woodstock. He starred opposite Zosia Mamet in the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival feature, The Boy Downstairs, released to theatres on February 16, 2018, by FilmRise. He also appeared in Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) and Marriage Story.His prior television appearances include the CBS police procedural drama NYC 22, the Hulu supernatural comedy series Deadbeat and the Peabody Award-winning web series Horace and Pete.
He is known for playing the role of Tony in Noah Baumbach‘s Mistress America, opposite Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke.
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