The Fabelmans

 

Score:  B+

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Starring Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano

Running time: 151 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Steven Spielberg puts a version of his upbringing on the big screen in The Fabelmans, an Oscar-contending drama.  Audiences get a vivid and intriguing portrait of a young Steven (here known as Sam) and his family, with strong performances from parents Michelle Williams and Paul Dano.  But I feel that it puts too much emphasis on this fairly typical (if well-produced) family drama and not enough on the young lead's prodigious artistic talent.  It is certainly worth a night at the theater, however, and your own consideration as it vies for Best Picture.

In the early 1950s, Burt (Dano) and Mitzi (Williams) Fabelman take their young son, Sam, to his first movie in the theater.  He is transfixed by a train crash and becomes obsessed with recreating it.  Before long, Sam fills his childhood days with film projects.  As the family moves from state to state, due to Burt's rising star career in computer science, cracks begin to form in their tight-knit relationships.  Artistic talent runs in the family on Mitzi's side - herself a gifted pianist - but Burt, while kind and patient, sees little use in such unpragmatic endeavors.  Like so many young people, Sam is forced to choose between his passions and expectations.

The Fabelmans is a very well-made movie as expected from legendary director Steven Spielberg, but it's much different than his usual work and suffers - in my opinion - from misplaced focus.  When I think of Spielberg, I first think about movies like Jurassic Park, Jaws, E.T., and Indiana Jones.  While he's made plenty of more serious movies, too, from Schindler's List to The Post, The Fabelmans is much closer to a more standard Oscar bait-y prestige drama than anything I've seen from him.  Digging deeper, most of his movies are story-focused, whether it's on fantastic or historic themes, with well-shaped characters to give them strong humanity.  This movie is the opposite, focusing on its characters and treating story as an add-on.  To Spielberg's credit, and his co-writer Tony Kushner and the performers, those characters are well done.  I especially liked the family relationships and dynamics, ranging from Sam's filming with his sisters and friends, to realistic parenting, to standout work from Michelle Williams as Sam's mom and a small but scene-stealing role for Judd Hirsch as his great-uncle.

The main problem of the film, to me, is one of misplaced focus with the story - what is usually Spielberg's greatest strength.  Perhaps this is because The Fabelmans is semi-autobiographical; he may have been understandably drawn to the more influential parts of his own life.  But as interesting as he makes his parents' broken relationship, it gradually takes over the movie, pushing Sam's/Steven's filmmaking development to the side.  There are some intriguing ways that Spielberg combine the two, during a fateful camping trip, and the performers - even a surprising Seth Rogen - do a great job with it.  However, I would have much preferred seeing Sam, who is kind of underdeveloped despite this being a two-and-a-half hour movie, kept in the center and going deeper into the neat, DIY movie world that's tantalizingly introduced.  There are several side elements - tension with Burt's career path, and connection with Mitzi's artistry - that definitely work well, so the opportunities to keep family life involved but secondary were there.  Sam's experience in a new school in the last third of the film is the worst and most awkward part of the biography, a failed attempt to give him more to do.  Between it and the divorce plot, the movie is just too sad - another departure from typical Spielberg.  If only it had been more consistently like the movie's final scene, one of its best.  Sam gets to meet his filmmaking idol, and the encounter is funny, creative, and positive, if a little tense at first.  That's what I expect from Spielberg.

***

Now that Oscar nominations have been made, The Fabelmans is the first of the contenders I've gotten to see in the run up to the ceremony (though I also saw a few others last year).  The Fabelmans is the latest in a trend of directors putting their own childhoods on the big screen; the immediate comparison to me is Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, though I'm pretty sure there are others.  If anyone has earned the right to a little personal artistic indulgence, it's Steven Spielberg.  I don't think this type of film is quite his wheelhouse yet he has still made a strong film; I just wish it was configured a bit differently.  Hopefully there will be some more awards contenders coming soon - mixed with some midwinter surprises.  Until next time!

* By Internet Movie Database, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71702334