The Fabelmans (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Leave it to Spielberg to make me eat my words. Overtly sentimental coming-of-age films are just not part of my areas of interest, and it tends to be the domain of prominent auteurs. Think everything from Spike Lee's Crooklyn to Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale to Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life (although I do quite like that one). Then there's Alfonso Cuaron's much-praised Roma and even this year's Armageddon Time from James Gray. Sometimes I like the film, but rarely enough for a rewatch; notable exceptions include Richard Linklater's Boyhood and Kenneth Branagh's Belfast, though those I like primarily for aesthetic reasons, not because of the story. These movies tend to feel like we're being forced to watch the director thumb through old family photo albums, and it's just not entertaining or interesting to me.

To be sure, The Fabelmans is meant to be understood as an autobiography of sorts for its director. The family in question is middle-class, Jewish, and very close; they move around a bit during the 1950s from New Jersey to California. We see the family -- and the world -- primarily through the eyes of their son, Sammy, who in the opening sequence is taken by his parents Mitzi and Burt (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano) to see his first film. Awed and inspired by it (DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth), he asks for a model train set for Hanukkah that year, which he then crashes and films using an 8mm camera. Mitzi recognizes his talent and eye immediately; Sammy might be a prodigy, and so she encourages his artistic experiments and helps him get the tools he needs to continue learning. Thus begins a lifetime pursuit of capturing awesome images and arresting stories on film.

While the main plot centers on Sammy's youth and adolescence, navigating new schools and anti-Semitic bullies while attempting to make movies, a parallel plot primarily concerns Mitzi and Burt. Mitzi was once a concert pianist who became a housewife and mother; Burt is a scientist and engineer who is really very good at his job. They are both lovely people -- and performed beautifully -- and they reinforce themes of the relationship between talent and purpose and of the cost of squandered talent. Burt's best friend Benny (Seth Rogen) is basically a third part of their marriage, as he injects the sense of fun and excitement into the family's domestic life that Burt -- who is admittedly boring, as a fundamental character trait -- cannot. Benny helps as he can, but naturally his presence becomes deeply complicated for the increasingly unhappy Mitzi and Burt. We're left to wonder exactly how far the passion between Mitzi and Benny goes, but her ultimate denial of it to Sammy is believable. Sammy of course has caught on, cursed/blessed as he is to witness everything via film.

The family aspect of the film is crucial (just look at the title), but it also reeks of unsentimental memory, which makes it feel cloyingly sentimental to me. On the other hand, I was glad to have some diversion from the Boy Wonder, whose antics are delightful until they're tiring. Spielberg brilliantly imbues moments with Sammy -- usually montages of his group of friends shooting new scenes of various projects -- with moments that surely shaped his own artistic and personal growth, as he learns (or demonstrates) that film isn't just about cool stunts and unique visuals. He can manipulate strangers into being friends or win over a girlfriend, he can memorialize a parent or shame an enemy, he can shield himself from pain and lie or tell the truth in varying degrees. One early interaction he has with his Uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch), who used to be a circus performer, makes it clear to him that he cannot waste his talents, even though it may mean sacrificing time and energy with his family.

And that's ultimately the point of the film, beyond any fictionalized autobiography: each of us must determine what happiness is for us, and then seek it out without hurting the people we love. It helps that Spielberg's playfulness is on full display here -- perhaps most obviously in the early sections with a very young Sammy and then again in the final shot of the film -- because, typical for him, even the "silly" or fun moments contain nuggets of raw, resonant power. He's a genius at the top of his game, and while The Fabelmans isn't going to be a regular repeat viewing experience for me, it is certainly one of the best movies about moviemaking ever made.