The Fabelmans (2023) - Steven Spielberg’s heartwarming ode to his childhood

Credit: allocine.fr

Many an ode has been written to the cinema, but none quite so heartfelt as Steven Spielberg’s latest masterpiece The Fabelmans, a tale that beautifully merges a schoolboy’s unwavering love for his family with his growing passion for “making movies”. And what better way to describe a film about films than in cinematic comparison? The Fabelmans shares its giddy excitement for the big screen with Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood, its balmy, coming-of-age atmosphere and out of place teens with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza, its kitchen marital problem discussions paired with familial devotion with Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. It is all of these and more, bundling up Spielberg’s signature sensitivity for complicated, atypical families with his sheer, unadulterated commitment to the art of film. The result is as bright as it is moving, as funny as it is tragic, packed with stellar performances from names and newcomers alike, and the feeling of complete immersion as film enthusiasts merge in the cinema and on the screen.

Gabriel LaBelle is staggeringly touching as Sammy Fabelman – a semi-autobiographical portrait of the young Spielberg – the beating and stable heart of the film as the eponymous family is moved from New Jersey, to Arizona, to California in a whirlwind of cardboard boxes and disappointing rentals. Father Burt, played with sensitivity and restraint by Paul Dano, is the brains of the family, an engineer whose bright future is at the expense of wife Mitzi’s happiness (a mesmerising performance from Michelle Williams). For, as Sammy and his three sisters grow, Burt and Mitzi’s marriage gradually dissolves, complicated by family friend Bennie, a refreshingly dramatic role for Seth Rogen. But Sammy always has film to rely on, both the source – his camera duty on a camping trip originates his discovery of Mitzi and Bennie’s suspiciously close relationship – and the solution, as his films grow more intricate and detailed, his audience more and more captivated. Caught in the web of a family falling apart at the seams, constant moves to foreign places, and growing antisemitism and bullying, film is a tool, a salvation for Sammy: shortly after a heated family meeting, his sister Reggie (a particularly moving sequence carried by Julia Butters) finds him editing a film for his high school prom.

Beneath the dysfunctionality however, there is a unyielding complicity and respect shared between the Fabelmans, one that is as strong as Sammy’s determination to make movies despite his father’s reticence. Mitzi’s outbreaks and proclivities for exuberant behaviour (she purchases a monkey when she feels sad) are superseded by her support for her children’s endeavours, as Burt’s incomprehension for the arts is by his simple desire to interest his children in engineering. Sammy’s maturity radiates throughout, the family’s resident documentarian forgiving his parents with a turn of his film roll. There is really only sheer joy watching this portrait of Spielberg’s childhood, a sense of nostalgia for something one hasn’t experienced, moments of rejoicing when otherwise mean-spirited high schoolers laugh and cheer at Sammy’s films and invite him to be a part of the clique, flashes of powerful, influential characters who are never seen again (Judd Hirsch’s Uncle Boris, who monologues to Sammy in his pyjamas about the tragedy of having to choose between family and art, is particularly striking). The Fabelmans is a tale of tension, ambiguity, laughter, betrayal, friendship, passion and love all at once. The result is something truly special, a reminder that something can be painful and complicated, but still feel like the warmest of hugs.