An agreeable comic drama

  Movies about psychologically damaged people can easily lead to dramatic overkill. Fantasy Life, which stars Amanda Peet as a 50ish actress whose career has evaporated, takes a different approach. Written and directed by Matthew Shear, who also plays a lead role, the movie takes place against a backdrop of ongoing crises that have become the soundtrack for the characters’ lives.

  Shear plays Sam, a schlub who, after losing his job as a paralegal, consults with his therapist (Judd Hirsch). Hirsch’s Fred prescribes drugs for OCD and also suggests that the unemployed Sam might babysit for his son’s three preteen daughters. 

   Shy and subject to panic attacks, Sam seems entirely unsuited for the job, which — of course — he takes.

  David (Alessandro Nivola), the girls’ father, works as a musician who’ll soon depart on an Australian tour as a fill-in bassist with a popular rock band. 

  The real story begins when Mom (Peet) arrives in Manhattan after having taken a mental health break on Martha’s Vineyard. Mired in depression about her vanishing career, Dianne decides that Sam should accompany her to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer. He’ll look after the kids, and she’ll continue with her inertia.

   Sam agrees. It doesn’t take long to see that he’s attracted to Dianne. Why not? Dianne’s attractive, both she and Sam are emotionally wounded, and Dianne’s marriage has hit a rough patch. It’s also clear that Dianne likes Sam, who makes no demands and praises her skills as an actress.  Less a matter of sexual attraction, the two create a comfort zone that both of them desperately need.

   Shear gently develops a relationship that raises eyebrows with Dianne’s parents (Bob Balaban and Jessica Harper). Hirsch is joined by Andrea Martin, who plays his wife and secretary.

  Aside from Sam, the characters seem affluent enough not to have to worry about money, and Shear’s eye-averting characterization turns him into a kind of walking human apology. 

  The story builds toward a climactic dinner scene. Dianne’s resentments erupt in comic fashion — or at least that seems to be the intent.

  Shear operates on a human scale, but Fantasy Life can seem a bit edgeless, and Sam’s mental issues --he's Jewish but antisemitic phrases pop intrusively into his head -- feel under-explored. Sam's inability to cope is made clear enough without what seems an  extraneous embellishment.

  Mostly, though, Fantasy Life passes easily without being uproariously funny or straining for satire. Call it agreeably light.

'My Big Fat'' attempt at third sequel

 

   Pretty scenery. Plenty of nicely styled pictures of food, and --- well ... I think I'm out of reasons why we have a My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3. 

   Void of anything resembling tension, this third edition sends the Portokalos family to Greece to visit the village of the late Mr. Portokalos. Seems Papa P. kept a diary about his immigrant American experiences. He wanted one of his childhood friends in Greece to have it.

   What's billed as a reunion is organized by Nikki (Gia Carides), a local who lives in Dad’s old village, a spot abandoned by most of its former population.

  Aunt Frieda (Maria Vacratsis) remains, probably so that the town has a grumpy/lovable crone. Every village needs one, particularly in movies that feast on cliches.

   So, what do we learn? Paris  (Elena Kampouris), daughter of Toula (Nia Vardolos) and Ian (John Corbett) has just completed her first year of college. 

   There might be a relative (Joe Fantone) no one knew about, and the primping but likable Nick Portokolos (Louis Mandylor) returns to do more primping. 

   Andrea Martin reprises her role as the acerbic Thea Voula, a genial sourpuss of a character. 

   Varololos wrote and directed this comically bland sequel and ethnic  celebration with a heavy foot on the stereotypical pedal.

    Vardalos adds a few new wrinkles, referencing Syrian refugees who've landed in Greece, for example. But it's difficult not to see Part 3 as more of the same --  absent Papa Portokalos who was played by Michael Constantine. Constantine, who appeared in the 2002 original and in 2016's sequel, died in 2021.

   Colorful in the way of picture postcards, this third helping isn’t likely to ruffle many features; it feels like one big fat selfie of a movie.

Trying not to be crushed by time and loss

Mary Kay Place gives a terrific performance in Diane.

These women know each other -- not in some faux movie way that depends on winking wisecracks, but in the way of women who've grown old together in the same small Massachusetts town and who no longer have secrets from one another. When the women gather in someone's kitchen, the men understand that they’ve been relegated to the background. These women weave the threads that hold lives together, although they also understand that these same threads inevitably will wear thin and fray.

They may know they're fighting a losing battle, but they're smart enough to sneer at the odds.

Named for its central character, Diane focuses one of those women. Diane (Mary Kay Place) has hit a bad patch. Her cousin (Deirdre O'Connell) is in the hospital dying of cervical cancer; her addict son Brian (Jake Lacy) interrupts his drug-induced catatonia with bouts of fury; and her best friend (Andrea Martin) has heard Diane's lamentations so many times that she's running out of patience. But then, Diane has begun to lose patience with herself, too.

Director Kent Jones, whose previous work includes the documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut, makes his fiction feature debut with material he seems to know well. He's helped by a superb cast that also includes Estelle Parsons as the mother of the dying woman, a no-nonsense lady who can be both wise and forgiving.

Like almost everyone in the movie, Diane carries plenty of emotional weight, and it takes almost the entire movie to discover what gnaws at her soul. But that doesn't mean that the journey toward this revelation isn't effective in its own right. Place's terrific performance, the evocation of atmosphere and the authenticity of its setting make Diane a marvel of cinema calibrated to reflect the agonies of ordinary life.

A few quibbles: Jones' tendency to divide various scenes with images of what Diane sees as she drives through the countryside become redundant. The story also strains a bit when Diane's son immerses himself in an evangelical zeal that he shares with his born-again wife (Celia Keenan-Bolger). It’s part of his fight against addiction.

Even here, though, Jones manages to add complexity. As much as she's relieved to see her son sober, Diane can't tolerate his attempts to make her see the light. She's too smart and cynical to want salvation -- if this is the way it must be attained. She'll stick to her own path.

The driving, if overdone, may be intended to show us that Diane, who volunteers at a local soup kitchen, can't sit still. She seems to be fighting against some awful sense of guilt; she makes lists of things to do, ordinary tasks that might be taken as her way of putting one foot in front of another. She pushes on.

Diane sounds like a downer, and, in some ways, it is -- unless you find the prospect of characters living with a heightened awareness of mortality and squandered hopes bracingly real. But what elevates Jones' movie is something that's far too rare in movies: a belief that if one throws aside the desire to fudge, it's possible to say, "This is how some of us live."

Someone dropped this wedding cake

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 takes the worst aspects of its 14-year-old predecessor -- sitcom plotting, ethnic stereotyping and family bickering -- and magnifies them to nearly intolerable levels. Written by its star -- Nia Vardalos -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding II contrives to have the family patriarch (Michael Constantine) marry his wife of long-standing (Lainie Kazan). Why is such a wedding necessary? Frazzled by war, an old-country priest forgot to sign the couple's original marriage certificate. Gasp! Their marriage wasn't official. Time has soured the jokes so that even intrusive aunt Voula (Andrea Martin) seems more crass than funny. Vardalos's Toula, married to non-Greek Ian (John Corbett), frets about every family issue while worrying that her 17-year-old daughter (Elena Kampouris) will leave the Chicago area to attend college. Awkwardly assembled by director Kirk Jones, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 stumbles through what it seems to regard as a feast of ethnic color. When the movie was finished I felt nearly as embarrassed as Kampouris' character did when her whole family improbably showed up at her high school's college fair. Vardalos has a knack for projecting beaming happiness. I hope she has a better reason than this cloying sequel for looking so damn cheerful.