Fantasy Life, which is a new movie written and directed by Matthew Shear, is a more substantial story than some critics seem to think.

Sam (Shear), a law-school dropout, agrees to babysit his psychiatrist’s (Judd Hirch) granddaughters and soon thereafter finds ways to spend their mother Dianne (Amanda Peet), an unemployed actor. Dianne, who does little to discourage Sam’s attention, nonetheless ends the affair almost before it begins but uses it to needle her estranged, and increasingly inebriated, husband (Alessandro Nivola) and their parents over dinner in her parents’ summer home.

Dianne’s husband, who drives away and then crashes his car, recovers in his parents’ home, but she eventually invites him home. Dianne later encounters Sam between sessions in another psychiatrist’s office, and asks him to meet her in a nearby coffee shop after hers, and they discuss their lives and split dessert before going their separate ways.

Most credible critics seem satisfied with this movie, which some nonetheless consider “slight” or even unoriginal. I however found it perhaps more subtle and refreshing, which made it even more satisfying.

The directing and acting are accomplished enough to support this unconventional plot. Dianne, who initiated their meeting and later hears the limitations of her belief after her new psychiatrist mirrors it back to her, seems incapable of expressing herself, and retreats into the less challenging topic of Sam’s missing money. Sam for his part seems relieved that Dianne doesn’t challenge his account of his life since he left after that disastrous dinner and in return accepts Dianne’s retreat.

Both in other words recognize, and resign themselves to, unfinished realities, and neither pushes for more, which are choices only mature people, however messy, could make. Such lessons are ones many of us could learn, which is why it is a more substantial, and significant, story.