Formula: Cinema Paradiso * Take This Waltz
It's hard to overstate Steven Spielberg's significance to American cinema. He's been making major films for nearly half a century, putting them out at about 18 months per movie. He's worked in most genres. He's won nearly every award (yet not as many as he probably should have). He's had the highest grossing movie of all time twice. And this doesn't even get into his work as a producer. So, while I'm getting a little tired of this trend of filmmakers who think we need to know about their childhoods, if anyone has earned this kind of movie, it's Spielberg.
The Fabelmans isn't directly a Spielberg biopic. Character names have been changed. The events don't match up exactly. If you've seen the HBO Spielberg documentary though, you'll quickly recognize similarities between the Spielbergs and the Fabelmans. Consider this my warning that I may refer to Steven Spielberg and Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) interchangeably at times. It's that kind of movie.
The Fabelmans is two central stories told concurrently. The larger of the two is Sammy Fabelman's development as a filmmaker. It starts with him as a very young child, making films himself as a way to process what he saw in other films. It establishes him as someone who would rather examine something than experience it. As he moves into his teenage years, he becomes more talented and realizes that his hobby may actually be his calling. The most impressive part about all this is how Spielberg refers to his innate talent for filmmaking without it feeling self-congratulatory. By all accounts, Spielberg himself is an exceptional talent as a filmmaker. He has a natural skill at it that sets him apart. I've often heard people say "he sees things cinematically". There's a version of The Fabelmans that comes off as bragging about himself. Instead, Spielberg applies the "it's a gift and a curse" aspects of it skillfully.
The other main plot is about Sammy's parents Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano). They are opposites who really love each other. Mitzi is a free spirit who in modern times likely would've been diagnosed as something like bipolar. Burt is a science and numbers man. It's hard to get into this story without spoiling some, and if you know much about Spielberg's history, then you already know what happens anyway. Basically, Mitzi, with Sammy's accidental help, comes to realize she's in love with Burt's best friend, Bennie (Seth Rogen). This discovery causes the two parts of the film to clash. Sammy's filmmaking is what leads him to this truth about his mother, and he looks at his filmmaking as more curse than gift. He does eventually come back around on filmmaking, but it's with a realization of the power that it can bring.
It's a long movie, so there's more to all of that, like a Christ-loving girlfriend fascinated by Sammy's Jewishness and some bullys at school Sammy handles in very different ways. If I had any complaint about the movie, it's that it plays a lot like Spielberg adapted his favorite journal entries rather than a focused, structured film. Spielberg really applies his Spielberg magic to this though. The movie is fun, funny, and heart-breaking in good balance. The man just plain knows how to make a watchable film. I heard one time that when Chris Rock is working out new stand-up material, he'll deliver the jokes with low energy that's unrecognizable to his comedy specials. His reasoning is that he knows how to make a joke work in the delivery. He wants to see if the jokes are actually good on their own. Spielberg is like that. He can make pretty much any film watchable. He brings those powers to turn The Fabelmans into a really entertaining movie rather than just a therapy session brought to film.
It helps that the cast is really tremendous. Gabriel LaBelle, in additional to being a convincing young Spielberg stand-in gives a great performance as well. Sammy easily could've been a whiny teen role, but LaBelle always keeps the audience on his side. Based on the material and Williams and Rogen in the cast, I couldn't stop thinking about Take This Waltz; also a film about a woman who leaves a good marriage for another relationship. Williams, Dano, and Rogen play the complicated dynamics really well. No one is the good or bad guy in this. They are just people who, too late, realize they are in a shitty position.
The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg at his most Steven Spielberg. It feels like the film he's been trying to get out of his system for decades. Not his greatest film. Certainly his most heartfelt. Maybe his most impressive, given how little it relies on effects or a compelling pitch.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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