Surely there’s not a film fan alive who isn’t keen to get some insight into how Steven Spielberg discovered cinema? After all, he’s only the most successful filmmaker of his generation. Happily, the Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark director has focused his impressive storytelling powers on his own formative years and the result, The Fabelmans, is in cinemas now.
The Fabelmans is not quite autobiography, but it’s extremely close, melding factual elements of Spielberg’s life with a little wish-fulfillment to tell the tale of Spielberg expy Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle). He’s a precocious Jewish kid who develops a love of cinema under the tutelage of his computer scientist father, Burt (Paul Dano), and his frustrated bohemian mother, Mitzi (Michelle Williams). But while Sammy focuses on filming, making mini-epics with his mates and developing his directorial chops, there’s trouble on the home front, and Mitzi’s affection for goofy Uncle Bennie (Seth Rogen) may be more than platonic…
The Fabelmans is a definite change of pace for Spielberg: a small personal film at odds with his early flights of filmic fantasy and later sombre historical dramas. But he brings all the cinematic magic he can muster to the material, capturing the joy of discovery and the pain of growing up while revealing a lot of his own personal history and hang ups. A brilliant ensemble cast is on hand to embody the supporting players in the young Spielberg’s life, and while arthouse darling David Lynch has received a lot of praise for his one scene cameo as legendary director John Ford, don’t sleep on Judd Hirsh, who just about walks away with the movie in his brief role as Sammy’s great uncle Boris, a former lion tamer and silent film veteran.
For fans of film, The Fabelmans is simply unmissable. Get down to your local fleapit, get the biggest box of popcorn they have, settle in and wait for the lights to go down—this is cinema.
