NEW YORK - Actress Aubrey Plaza stars in the new indie thriller, “Black Bear,” where reality and art crisscross in the film that has two parts.

The meta-thriller may have audiences asking questions - which director Lawrence Michael Levine welcomes with his film within a film.

“I wanted the movie to feel like a dream that's very vivid and difficult to pin down meaning on. So any questions that you have are kind of the point,” he said.

Levine blurs the lines between reality and art in this film that has two parts. In part one, Plaza’s character, Allison, is a filmmaker who joins a couple at their bed and breakfast looking for inspiration for a new script. What follows is a tangled web of jealousy and manipulation. Plaza’s performance is garnering rave reviews, but she has questions for Levine herself.

“The biggest question that I had for him after I read it was just, how do you know how can you believe that I can actually pull this off? It was just like, and then Allison gives the best performance that anyone's ever seen, and I'm like, you can't write that in a script and expect me to be able to do that,” Plaza said.

Levine didn’t have any doubts about Plaza’s acting chops. He’s had his eye on her since their early days in New York City where he saw her perform for the first time.

“I saw her on stage - we are both involved in the improv scene in New York. I remember watching her for the first time, I was backstage, and she was really, really special even then,” Levine said.

Actors Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon play the unhappy couple in part one of the film. Gadon said she enjoyed the twists in the script.

“That's one of the things I loved when I read it, is this halfway through this total break from reality. I hadn't read anything like that before. And I was curious how he was going to pull it off,” Gadon said.

In part two of “Black Bear,” Levine flips the script on his characters and the film turns into the actual making of a film. The emotional climax in part two of the film was intense for Plaza - and the crew.

“It was upsetting. But I think that deep down inside, I think we all knew, like, you know, we're making a movie about this. So there was just something that kept driving it,” said Plaza.

“Black Bear” is now available on demand.