Film Review - The Fabelmans
Images courtesy of StudioCanal.
The Fabelmans is a sun-soaked and sentimental coming-of-age tale, drawing upon Steven Spielberg’s life. In evoking - but not replicating - the dynamics of his family and filmmaking and journey, the film reveals itself as a tribute to the importance of applying fresh perspectives in cinema and in life.
Spielberg's semi-autobiography follows Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-Deford), our stand-in for a bright-eyed Spielberg. On a chilly evening in 1952, Sammy’s father, Burt (Paul Dano), and mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams), take Sammy to his first ever film in a transfixing introduction to cinema. As his eyes grow wide at an explosive onscreen train crash, we fasten ourselves for the same experience, casting our minds back to the magic of our first Spielberg or cinematic equivalent.
The Fabelmans is charmingly old-school and, in many ways, the cultivation of Spielberg’s most heartfelt pictures, co-written with longtime collaborator Tony Kushner (Lincoln). The difference here is that it’s terribly vulnerable, in ways besides the obvious autobiographical elements. The film pins everything on its characters and coming of age simplicity; no extraterrestrials or subgenre excitement. Even so, Spielbergian spectacle perseveres.
50s-60s setpieces and vibrant costuming shot in strong complementary tones bring an uplifting air of nostalgia. Style aside, Fabelmans is emotionally transportive in the details. Spielberg carefully places intimate quirks inside the walls of the Fabelman household, like Mitzi’s use of throwaway paper plates (saving her pianist hands from dishwashing). It’s marvelously tactile. Still, the distance of memory persists in the dreaminess of the world’s dewy soft lighting and ever-evolving colour story.
When family patriarch Burt is dealt a string of promotions, the Fabelman family unit is upheaved from state to state and, with each move, Mitzi and the children surrender some best-loved parts of themselves.
In particular, Sammy and his mother struggle to toe the mark between self and the collective family. Mitzi’s whimsy and imagination clash with maternal responsibilities. She dreams of a career as a pianist, chases tornadoes in the family sedan, and her heart remains in Arizona with beloved family-friend, Benny (Seth Rogan).
Similarly, teenage Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle), who now prefers to be called Sam, feels as though he doesn’t belong to himself and is torn between his parents’ opposing spirits. While Mitzi and Sam share an appreciation for art, Burt is practically minded; he compliments Mitzi’s playing on the technicality of the piece and soothes 7 year-old Sammy with a lecture on the science of moving pictures.
In a breathtaking sequence, Sammy cuts together footage of a family holiday and stumbles upon evidence of a family secret. Spielberg intercuts the revelation with a heartsick Mitzi playing the piano as Burt tries to be emotionally present - but can only swing his pen like a metronome.
Michelle Williams and Paul Dano deliver nuanced performances of equally warm and complex parental figures. While Mitzi and Burt’s love for family is clear, their true feelings as individuals are steeped in mystery, as is often our perspective of family. Even in adulthood, we can only assemble impossibly blinkered fragments of parental portraits. The Fabelmans treads this line with Sammy’s (and Spielberg’s) POV, to deliver a vulnerable retrospective which evokes both understanding and mystification.
Spielberg excels in clever plays of perspective and reflexivity. Sammy wields his camera the same way Spielberg does; from home-movies, westerns and war films, to the reality of Fabelmans, we’re treated to beautifully gutsy shots that linger on performance. The real enjoyment is how you can feel Spielberg’s filmmaking thrill behind every choice.
When Sammy’s family uproots a final time, he reconnects with filmmaking by shooting a day at the beach for his graduating class. Sam takes back possession of his narrative by curating a deeply flattering edit of his highschool bully, Logan (Sam Rechner), despite zero signs of reconciliation. In a heated (frankly, homoerotic) confrontation in the school hallway, Logan reveals that he felt seen by Sammy’s beach film. With tear-stained cheeks, the two of them share a joint against the lockers and spill out their fears for the future beyond graduation. Sammy’s beach film project operates much like The Fabelmans in how it uses cinema magic to reconstruct life - and in doing so, rediscover personal truths.
For Spielberg, the world makes sense through the dreamlike lens of filmmaking. The Fabelmans manages to conjure cinematic spectacle out of family drama with embracive character studies and an unyielding recount of bittersweet youth.
The Fabelmans is screening in cinemas from Thursday 5th January 2023. For tickets and more info, click here.