The Fabelmans

The Fabelmans

Universal Pictures

VERDICT: Steven Spielberg solidifies his legendary origin story playing with truth, fiction, and the magic of moviemaking.

“Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth,” Michael Haneke once said. This is the surprising dichotomy at the heart of Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans. Presented with the director’s trademark warmth, courtesy of regular collaborators Janusz Kaminski’s brightly lit, comforting cinematography and John Williams’ twinkling score, the aesthetics are illusive as Spielberg presents the truth of his life, refracted through the lens of fiction. 

The Fabelmans are the nom de plume for the Spielbergs, with Paul Dano and Michelle Williams in the roles of devoted and supportive parents Burt and Mitzi to the bright-eyed Sammy, as we follow the life of the budding filmmaker from childhood (where Sammy is played by Mateo Zoryan Francis-DeFord) through adolescence (Gabriel LaBelle). Just as Steven caught the camera bug after seeing his first movie, The Greatest Show On Earth, so it goes for Sammy, and soon he’s almost never without a camera in his hands. Herding his sisters and friends into making westerns and WWII pictures and chronicling family milestones and events, he makes a quick study of amateur special effects and even builds his own homemade dolly tracks.

As Sammy grows up and the Fabelmans move from New Jersey to Phoenix to Los Angeles, following Burt’s advancing career in computing, he starts to learn difficult lessons about how shaping narratives can either hide the truth or exalt a myth. Reviewing footage from a camping trip, Sammy is left alone to wrestle with a revelation about Burt’s best friend “Uncle” Benny (Seth Rogen) that he edits out of the final cut to keep hidden from the rest of the family. Later, he discovers the unexpected effect his documentary of Ditch Day for the high school graduating class has on his long-time bully and student body hero Logan (Sam Rechner). These explosions of insight are greater than any fireworks packed in dirt in Sammy’s wartime fantasies.

Yet, as much as truth and identity are central concepts in the film, Spielberg takes a perceptible step back from fully committing. Working closely with screenwriter Tony Kushner (Munich, Lincoln, West Side Story), he is careful to maintain the aura of the Fabelmans-Spielbergs. Dano’s doting Burt is a genius with high expectations of Sammy, but never stands directly in the way of his ambitions. And while Mitzi’s eccentricities, melancholy, and betrayal — portrayed in a strangely overblown, belted to the back seats, yet occasionally sensitive performance by Williams —  is the ultimate cause of an irreparable fracture in the Fabelman family, forgiveness and understanding are never far behind. Even a small turn by Judd Hirsch as Uncle Boris, which serves to articulate the pain of being an artist in a family without a lineage of creatives, is a thread that isn’t pulled on too strongly in the rest of the picture. “You can love something, but you also have to take care of it,” Burt advises his son early in the movie. While he was talking about Sammy’s train set, the lesson applies to his own family. The Fabelmans-Spielbergs are only as complicated and selfish as the filmmaker allows. 

If he’s delicate in regard to his family members, Steven — sorry, Sammy — is a full-bodied creation that sees Spielberg and Kushner work through the director’s own life with more willingness for detail and complexity, allowing bruises both literal and figurative to form. The picture comes to life in LaBelle’s endearing breakout performance, which embodies Spielberg as a confident artist, conflicted son, and above all, a dreamer who can’t see anything that passes in front of his eyes other than through a frame. “The Fabelmans” is generous toward its central subject, but honest too. 

All of this plays like a magic trick as Spielberg builds his own hagiography and solidifies the origin story of his iconography. As a viewer, we know he’s putting his own life up on screen with a clearly defined bias. And yet, his powers as a storyteller craft a magnetic and moving experience drawn from his well of personal memories. The plights and strains within the Fablemans, the struggles Sammy faces with anti-Semitism to carrying the burden of family secrets, all connect even if they’re manipulated by the filmmaker himself. Can Spielberg objectively tell his own story? Certainly not. But if cinema is 24 lies per second, the filmmaker has mined his life to uncover universal truths about growing up and the yearning to tell stories, no matter the medium.

It would be fiction, if it didn’t actually happen, but Spielberg recreates the moment, bumbling around his first low-level TV job, when he unexpectedly met the legendary John Ford (a fantastically cranky cameo by David Lynch). The master gave him advice he’s never forgotten: always find the horizon — and make sure it’s interesting. Spielberg wraps The Fabelmans with a ticklish and deeply humble closing shot that acknowledges that even after five decades as one of the most influential filmmakers in history, every single time he looks through the camera lens, he’s still working to get it right.

Director: Steven Spielberg 
Screenplay: Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner
Cast: Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle, Jeannie Berlin, Julia Butters, Robin Bartlett, Keeley Karsten, Judd Hirsch
Producers: Carla Raij, Josh McLaglen, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner
Cinematography: Janusz Kaminski
Production design: Rick Carter
Costume design: Mark Bridges
Editing: Michael Kahn, Sarah Broshar
Music: John Williams
Sound: Ronald Judkins
Production companies: Amblin Entertainment, Reliance Entertainment (USA)
World sales: Universal
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentations)
In English
151 minutes