Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated The Fabelmans is a fictionalised retelling of the acclaimed director's life and his quick and hard fall in love with cinema. Starring Gabriel LaBelle as the young Sammy, The Fabelmans follows the eponymous family's journey across America and Sammy's evolution into a budding filmmaker.
The Fabelman family is rounded out by Paul Dano as Sammy's father Burt and Michelle Williams as his mother, Mitzi, a role for which she has been nominated for an Oscar, too. Uncle Bennie is played by Seth Rogen. Yes, The Fabelmans is quite Jewish.
A good portion of the marketing for The Fabelmans centres around the antisemitism Sammy faces at the WASPy hands of his high-school peers. In reality, the film doesn't devote as much time to this theme as the trailers make it seem.
In a way, this makes sense. Spielberg's films don't centre around a theme of Jewishness (the way, say, Seinfeld does), so it would feel disingenuous to shoehorn that tension into The Fabelmans. Unfortunately, there isn't anything else to keep the tension as taut as it needs to be throughout its significant runtime.
That isn't to say the film is boring — it is a Spielberg film, after all. There is a certain momentum to the plot, thanks in part to the physical movement across America (from New Jersey to Arizona to northern California) and you do find yourself interested in the unfolding dynamics, whose complications grow as Sammy does.
Sammy is our lens, and as the magic of childhood and youthful naivety begins to dissipate the story becomes more real, the stakes higher. However, the character is still that of a very young person, and the relationships are only ever explored and described within that framework.
The scenes between the adults are the ones with the most emotive oomph. Mitzi and Burt navigate their marriage under the watchful eye of their children, but in the one moment where they're free to be adults, we are free to fully immerse ourselves in the more nuanced, complicated interpersonal grit that makes characters interesting.
There is a cinematic sheen to the whole thing, the movie magic that seems to make even the most desperate moments feel glamorous. Again, it isn't a fault but it does soften the narrative edge that you expect the movie to have.
Still, The Fabelmans is — unsurprisingly — beautifully filmed and written (Tony Kushner, Spielberg's longtime collaborator, served as co-writer). It's a two-and-a-half-hour glimpse into the world of old America, exploring some of its faults, and the magic of old Hollywood, exploring none of its faults: a true 'love letter to cinema'.
Much of the criticism we left — a lack of narrative tension, the sometimes-sterile movie magic — is hard to level at the movie given it's what Spielberg is known for. The triumph of the ordinary person who becomes extraordinary is Spielberg's whole thing, and so in turning the lens on himself, why would we expect anything different?
If you love the heartwarmingness (it's a word now, we made it happen) of Spielberg, you'll likely enjoy The Fabelmans for the sweet feeling it leaves you with. If you expected to learn anything more gritty or dark about the nature of humanity, filmmakers, or youth and family dynamics in 1950s America, you'll be left wanting.
Still, it's captivatingly made and well-acted enough that even if you're not totally satisfied, the film still accomplishes the feat of transporting you to a world you may not have known otherwise, and being entertaining along the way.
The Fabelmans is now out in cinemas
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