Worth: $19.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Gabrielle LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Judd Hirsch, Mateo Zoryan, Seth Rogen, Mateo Zoryan, Jeannie Berlin, Chloe East
Intro:
… a majestic film that avoids being cloying or precious …
Recently, there has been a spate of directors investigating their personal relationship to cinema and the events that have shaped them as filmmakers. From James Gray in Armageddon Time, Paolo Sorrentino in The Hand of God, Sam Mendes in Empire of Light, Joanna Hogg in The Souvenir films (and the yet to be released The Eternal Daughter), and Alejandro Iñárritu in Bardo: False Chronicles of a Handful of Truths.
While some of the films on the list can fairly be called exercises in navel gazing, Steven Spielberg’s rapturous fictionalised vision of his youth, The Fabelmans stands as a singular vision of one of the most beloved and successful directors of his, and any other, generation.
Julie Hart, the protagonist of Joanna Hogg’s Souvenir trilogy says at one point during the film version of her own memories from the first film: “I don’t want to see life as it was, I want to see life as I imagine it to be.” To an extent, Spielberg’s vision of himself in Sammy Fabelman follows that maxim, but through Spielberg’s autobiographical fiction (written in conjunction with frequent collaborator and award-winning playwright, Tony Kushner), the audience sees truths that Spielberg himself was long unaware.
The Fabelmans has undeniable elements of Spielberg’s life. His peripatetic existence with his parents, here known as Mitzi (Michelle Williams) and Burt (Paul Dano). The push and pull between what his parents want from him; Mitzi, an accomplished pianist, wants him to dream and breathe art; Burt, a genius engineer who was instrumental in creating the modern computer, wants Sammy (played mostly by Gabrielle LaBelle) to drop his hobby of making movies and concentrate on a concrete career in an industry where he can make something “real.” The idea that films aren’t real is explored with intelligence – yes, they can be fiction, but in the right hands they can also be revelations that show truths that aren’t spoken of in other mediums. In a particularly dramatic scene, Sammy imagines filming what is going on instead of living in the moment of it. It may be a meta-textual flourish, but it is also a way to understand how an artist makes sense of the world.
The film begins with Mitzi and Burt taking young Sammy to see The Greatest Show on Earth on a snowy night in 1951. Sammy (Mateo Zoryan) is afraid of the dark cinema. Mitzi explains that movies are dreams, Burt explains frame rates and the technical side of motion pictures. Sammy himself is so overwhelmed by the experience that when Mitzi asks him what his favourite part was, he sits with his mouth agape on the ride home.
The Fabelmans is as much a family drama as it is an exploration of the artist as a young man. Mitzi does her best to hide her discontent with Burt, who she deeply loves but is unhappy with. Her heart belongs to his best friend Bennie (Seth Rogen using his gift for comedy and drama to excellent effect). Mitzi is also seen as not quite suitable by Burt’s family – wonderful small gestures by Jeannie Berlin as his mother speak volumes. As the family moves away from New Jersey to Arizona, Mitzi insists that Bennie come along. The long-gestating affair between them (which is more innocent than it appears, but deeper than Burt and Sammy understand) drives a wedge between Sammy and Mitzi when he accidentally captures images on a family camping trip of the two. Sammy, whose first audience was Mitzi, almost sadistically makes her watch what the camera has picked up.
Although this didn’t happen to Spielberg, the fact that he admits that he could do something so unkind is one of the aspects of the film that rings with truth. Sammy isn’t without his flaws, he’s selfish, he’s blind to things that don’t interest him. Spielberg doesn’t make Sammy an all-out good guy – in fact there are things that Sammy does that, although they demonstrate his understanding of the power of the captured image, are manipulative and destructive.
Sammy and the family end up in North California (Bennie does not) and for the first time he encounters the ferocity of anti-Semitism. The teens at his high school are towering figures, literally and figuratively. He makes surprising connections with some of the popular in-crowd, including the ultra-Catholic Monica Sherwood (Chloe East). The film balances some absurd comedy with the seriousness of prejudice and how Sammy negotiates both.
Performances by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano are nothing short of brilliant. Both actors reach into their characters and allow them to personify the empathy that Spielberg is attempting to give to his parents. Williams is rarely bad on screen, and Dano is perfect for a man whose intelligence is astounding, but his ability to fix the problems in his family is limited. Judd Hirsch delivers a tremendous performance as Sammy’s maternal uncle Boris, who tells Sammy that family and art don’t always co-exist, and as much as Sammy loves his family, he just may love making movies more. As a veteran bit-player and one-time circus performer, Boris lost his connection to his own family. Also, film lovers will be delighted by a David Lynch cameo, playing a towering movie luminary.
Gabrielle LaBelle is perfect as Sammy/Stephen. He not only looks the part, but he also conveys adolescent fear, anger, and kindness. Sammy is often truculent and uninterested in the people around him, unless he’s filming them (his sisters especially fall into this category). Yet, no one can doubt that he has empathy and an understanding of how to convey emotions – he just needs to learn how to apply his movie brain to the world, and when he does, he shows that he sees what’s going on, but he needs his camera and editing suite to make reality more real.
Shot by frequent collaborator Janusz Kaminski, with a score by the legendary John Williams, The Fabelmans is a testament to the prodigious skill of Spielberg and his ability to work with the very best in the field. It’s a majestic film that avoids being cloying or precious – everything you’d hope from the master of movies, and at times more than you would imagine Spielberg would create.