You might wonder to yourself why someone like Steven Spielberg (“Jaws,” “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”), a director who’s virtually entire career has consisted of telling stories about families and familial bonds, would bother making a movie about his own life. It could easily seem like overkill, as you can glean as much about his upbringing from his entire filmography as you could one autobiography.
That really is the biggest hurdle against the film: on paper, there are plenty of similarities to not only Spielberg’s past films, but also other autobiographical films from other directors. But what the film has in practice is far more than just melodrama, because it still has Spielberg’s direction, a script by Tony Kushner (“Angels in America,” “West Side Story (2021)”), cinematography by Janusz Kamiński (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Amistad”), music by John Williams (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Star Wars”), and an entire cast of excellent actors bringing the drama to life.
The film follows the life of Sammy Fabelman, played as a young kid by Mateo Zoryon and a teenager by Gabriel LaBelle (“American Gigolo (2022),” “Brand New Cherry Flavor”), as he begins to develop his love of movies and filmmaking while growing up amidst his parent’s crumbling marriage and multiple moves across the country. Michelle Williams (“Brokeback Mountain,” “Blue Valentine”) plays his mother Mitzi Schildkraut-Fabelman, Paul Dano (“Little Miss Sunshine,” “Prisoners”) plays his father Burt Fabelman, and Seth Rogen (“Pineapple Express,” “Steve Jobs”) played family friend Bennie Loewy, with borderline cameo performances from Judd Hirsch (“Ordinary People,” “Independence Day”) and David Lynch (“Twin Peaks,” “Eraserhead”).
When you have a screenwriter with a pedigree like Kushner, there’s a certain level of quality to expect, and the script co-written with Spielberg is some really great melodrama. The dialogue has a naturalistic touch without feeling plain or boring. The film is also perfectly paced, never feeling rushed or slowing to a crawl. There are plenty of little touches that border on easter eggs for Spielberg’s later work as well, but more than anything, the spirit of the love of the movies is intact from the very first moments to the (literal) very end.
With material as rich as this, the cast has plenty of excellent material to work with and they’re all exceptional. Dano does a great job towing the line between stern cold leadership and also the warmth a father can have. Rogen is great as the family’s surrogate-uncle, easily channeling his comedic sensibilities into the role. However, Williams is absolutely stellar, delivering a terrific and complicated performance as the matriarch of the Fabelman household. She’s heartbreaking and exceptionally good. Zoryon is also great, but LaBelle completely steals the film from him as the older Sammy. There’s a wide-eyed earnestness to LaBelle’s performance that, set against the heartbreaking nature of some of the film’s events, delivers a remarkably sincere and emotional role.
The film’s warm color palette is easily comparable to the kind of summertime glow that often populates houseware catalogs and much of Spielberg’s 80s-era output. Kamiński’s cinematography isn’t particularly flashy, but it does a great deal to help bolster the film’s events. Instead of simple shot-reverse shot sequences, he does a lot simply by tilting and moving the camera to follow movements and gazes, which, coupled with Williams’s score, allows the film to blossom into a rose-colored glasses viewpoint of a child realizing his parents are people and the growing up that it requires him to do.
Only time will tell how “The Fabelmans” stacks up to the rest of Spielberg’s illustrious catalog. Given the wide gamut of films he’s made, it could easily land anywhere for any person. If nothing else, it manages to be an exceptionally well-executed display of family melodrama that, at its best, is a perfect showcase of how a love for the movie can infect someone at a young age and truly shape how they view the world growing up. Bolstered by some fantastic performances and generally wonderful filmmaking craft on all fronts, it’s a movie anyone’s mother would be proud of 4.5/5
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