“I need to see them crash.” These are the first fated words of a future filmmaker, Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord), whispered to his mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams) after he’s crashed his toy train after bedtime, inspired by his very first big-screen cinematic experience, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Mitzi instantly recognizes that re-creating the train crash is a way for young Sammy to exert some control over the fear he felt during the movie, and so she presents him with his father’s 8mm camera to capture, and replay, the crash. With this lesson on art as catharsis imprinted in his young mind, a movie director is born.
In the deeply personal “The Fabelmans,” legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg applies his artistic instincts to his own familial catharsis, turning his lens on his own upbringing, his childhood journey to becoming a filmmaker, and his parents. What could have been some kind of auto-hagiography is a playful, honest and ultimately gracious childhood memoir that derives its universal lessons from its specificity.
“The Fabelmans” is simultaneously the story of how a filmmaker comes to be, the product of an artist and an engineer, and a reckoning with, or setting the record straight, about his parents’ relationship, which has been shared before in interviews and in the 2017 documentary “Spielberg.” It is also, on a more spiritual level, an attempt to capture the drive to be an artist and what following that dream entails, and philosophically, about what it means to see or be seen through the lens of a camera.
Spielberg and co-writer Tony Kushner pack a lot into “The Fabelmans,” but first and foremost, it is funny and warm and loving, and complicated, in an authentically familial way. Much of this comes from Williams’ performance as Mitzi, which is specific, and big, but always feels real. Mitzi is wild and wonderful, a concert pianist who feeds her family on paper plates because she refuses to do dishes and risk her hands. She is fascinating, frustrating, immensely loving and lovable, and ultimately, unknowable, especially by her husband Bert (Paul Dano), a sensible engineer working on the development of computers.
Sammy (played in his teenage years by an excellent Gabriel LaBelle) knows his mother, because he sees her, through the viewfinder of camera, and later, winding through his reels of 8mm footage. What he sees he does not always like, especially when it comes to Mitzi’s friendship with Bert’s best friend Benny (Seth Rogen), but Sammy and Mitzi are too similar, possessed of an artist’s heart that cannot be denied. In their darkest moments, they are both “selfish and scared,” as his sister Reggie (Julia Butters) shouts at him, but Mitzi’s dreams, and her dreams deferred, become Sammy’s guiding light as he fumbles toward his calling.
A film so intimate and revealing about one’s own family could end up being somewhat maudlin, but Spielberg’s filmmaking is lively and even mischievous here. Working with longtime cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, Spielberg deploys a signature fluid camera style, but he employs whip pans and record scratches and little playful jogs of the camera to find a horizon line. The approach isn’t just amusing and endearing, but a reminder that Spielberg’s still just a kid who loves making movies, as he loves his family, as messy as it might be.
With “The Fabelmans,” Spielberg asks us to have a little fun and to remember our childhood love of the movies. But he also makes a profound statement about how he sees others through his filmmaking, and in that process how he himself is seen. In this delightfully meta memoir, he allows us to see him too.
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'THE FABELMANS'
4 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for some strong language, thematic elements, brief violence and drug use)
Running time: 2:31
How to watch: In theaters Friday
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