The Fabelmans review: Spielberg packs his magic into telling his own story

Review of Fabelmans This was published originally in connection with the premiere of this film at Toronto International Film Festival. This has been updated for theatrical release.

At the heart of nearly every Steven Spielberg film is the spirit of a boy who’s still saddened by his parents’ divorce, papering over his grief in cinema’s vast sandbox. You can see that kid’s pain unconsciously spilling out in the bickering mom and dad characters from Third Kind Close Encounters. This is what happens in family dynamics E.T.Extra-Terrestrial. Und it continues to evolve. Catch Me If You Can, as Frank Abagnale seeks refuge at the home of his mom’s second family. But Spielberg has never approached his own childhood with such straightforwardness as he does in his semi-autobiographical movie The Fabelmans one of 2022’s best films so far.

The original word FabelmansSpielberg seemed to be trying to get into the movie industry’s trend for cinematic origin stories. But this time, his story was about him. But his crowd-pleasing coming-of-age-tale doesn’t fit neatly into that box, or any other. It’s a deeply personal narrative that isn’t wholly an autobiography, a greatest-hits replay of his career, or a cliché ode to moviemaking. It’s a vulnerable reach into his past, designed to heal a wound that seems to still be as tender as the day it opened decades ago, in spite of the bursts of comedy and the measured ruminations on display.

At times, Fabelmans feels more like an idealized daydream of what could’ve happened to him, which often sands off the real-world edges and the pure anger that he must have felt as the son of divorced parents. This isn’t a confessional story. The real-world characters are granted a needed grace. This is something that only a few people can find after a lifetime. And it features a brand of craftsmanship — from deliberate blocking to controlled, ingenious camera movements — that only occurs when you’re, well, Steven Spielberg. Above all else, it’s an empathetic message from the director to his mother.

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Spielberg worked once more with Tony Kushner, his collaborator West Side Story, LincolnPlease see the following: MunichTo write the script. Their story begins with Burt (Paul Dano, in a tremendous performance) and Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams, in a show-stopping one) taking their young son Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord in early scenes, and Gabriel LaBelle in the teenage sequences) to the movies to see Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show On Earth. Sammy’s eyes are captivated and seduced by the pictures projected on the screen. A fiery trainwreck in which Sammy’s car is impaled and blood erupts and explosives fills the air, scares him so much that he continues to reenact the scene over and over with the toy train.

To calm her son, Mitzi lets Sammy borrow his dad’s camera so he can film one of his toy-train crashes as a way to confront his fears. What Mitzi really does, however, is ignite a therapeutic love for movie-making, creating a lens that will become Sammy’s tool for trying to make sense of the world.

Sammy’s universe isn’t that complex. Burt is an intelligent, dedicated computer engineer. Mitzi is free-spirited and classically trained pianist. Sammy is the proud father of three siblings: Reggie (Julia Butters), Natalie Keeley Karsten, and Lisa (Sophia Koopera). The New Jersey home where they all live is the perfect incubator for Sammy’s imagination. Their close knit Jewish community encourages them to observe Jewish customs, enjoy their culture, and they are often visited by family members. This movie is very Jewish. They also hang out with Burt’s best friend and colleague Bennie Loewy (Seth Rogen), a man who appears totally supportive of the couple, but whose flaws could one day undo the family. In building out the imperative support system the Fabelmans enjoy in their neighborhood, Spielberg and Kushner’s assured script reveals the cracks that formed once the family left their familiar confines.

Burt has ambition and is selfish. His first step is to uproot his family and move them from California to Arizona. Next, he grabs his stick and starts heading toward Northern California. The further the family moves west, the further Sammy drifts away from his family and his roots — which brings him closer to his artistic passions. This early setup, which consumes the first hour of this 151-minute personal essay, runs at a slow pace, with a thesis that’s initially disorientating. What percentage of Spielberg can be found in Sammy’s story? How much of what we’re seeing is fictionalized? Why wasn’t this just named The SpielbergsYou want to spare everyone the pain?

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One scene shows Sammy sneaking into a movie with his Eagle Scouts friends. It’s telling that John Ford’s Liberty Valance and the Man Who Shot it It is currently playing. John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart star as local senators. They recount how their rise to power was spurred by the legend that they shot the famous outlaw. It’s a movie about mythmaking, reinvention, and the American West as an imperative setting for creating your own identity. Fabelmans functions in a similar fashion: It isn’t a beat-for-beat origin story, it’s a chance for Spielberg to reshape the past without the heavy burden of his own name.

This allows him to reassess his memories of his mother. Sammy is very similar to Mitzi in many ways. Burt considers their artistic interests to be hobbies. And Mitzi, in particular, has spent years setting aside her creative goals in favor of her husband’s burgeoning career. In the words of Mitzi’s Uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch, who absolutely crushes his one scene), she could’ve played anywhere for any symphony. She became a mom instead. Now, she and Sammy are looking for a way past Burt’s idiosyncrasies. The once strong bond between mother and son is broken when Sammy discovers something disturbing about Mitzi in a series of events beautifully crafted by FabelmansEditors Sarah Broshar & Michael Kahn). This causes him temporarily to lose his passion for movie-making.

Do not make any mistakes, though Fabelmans isn’t dour. It’s a screen full of visual joy. Well-calibrated tracking shots and Janusz Kaminski’s dazzling cinematography set the creative bar. References to Spielberg’s biggest hits add a tip of the cap to his own career. Sammy films simple scenes, before moving on to making decent-sized war-flicks. And at Sammy’s new Los Angeles high school, he falls for a Christian girl, Monica (Chloe East), whose attempts to convert Sammy provide riotous prayers doubling as euphemisms.

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Yet, the movie is driven by the feeling of loss and betrayal that a child feels following a divorce. It’s where LaBelle shines as the teenage Sammy. He doesn’t just imitate Spielberg’s speaking cadence and his body language. By portraying Sammy first as an unathletic, street-dumb, and dweeby kid, he elevates his artifice to a higher level than mere imitation. This is more evident than in Sammy’s confrontation with his anti-Semitic bullying friends through the theatre. This movie is obsessed with people watching movies. LaBelle grounds these scenes with a sincerity that doesn’t come off as mawkish, but as euphoric and infectious.

LaBelle can be a wonderful actor on his own but he is at his best when he plays opposite Williams and Dano, who are both subtle yet powerful. His best character work is here. Williams, as the trapped housewife, turns in a freewheeling performance that would qualify as impossibly brilliant in its rawness and liveliness, if she didn’t just pull it off. Williams perfectly articulates the feeling of a woman on the verge of tearing Hereself apart, until she remembers that it isn’t herDreams and happiness must be destroyed.

Spielberg is refreshingly different and doesn’t paint Burt or Mitzi outright as villains. They are complicated people with unignorable needs that they can’t fulfill while staying together. Sammy understands the confusion of adulthood. Spielberg is accepting it and seeing his mother as an equal person.

By the end of the movie — which includes a too-hilarious to be described cameo by David Lynch as John Ford — Sammy skips down a studio lot knowing his troubles are behind him, and that his future lies just ahead. FabelmansSpielberg is using his extensive filmmaking expertise to craft a story in which his heart and soul are glued across the screen. It’s beautiful, evocative, enthralling blockbuster filmmaking, perfectly tuned to remind viewers of the power that can reside within a movie.

FabelmansReleased in broad theatrical release Nov. 23