Steven Spielberg tells the story of how he became a filmmaker—and the family drama that helped fuel familial themes in movies like E.T. the Extra Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—in The Fabelmans, his second masterpiece in a row after last year’s West Side Story.
Spielberg has not lost one iota of his storytelling powers over the years. The man is still making the greatest movies coming out of Hollywood.
Spielberg fans know that plotlines including divorce in his earlier films came from his own childhood. The family in his latest film is called the Fabelmans, but they are very much the Spielbergs, with various actors playing a thinly veiled version of Steven. Gabriel LaBelle, a dead-ringer for a young Spielberg, plays the teen Sammy, a Boy Scout who wants to be a moviemaker.
Spielberg’s elaborate home movies from his childhood are the stuff of legend, and they are re-created meticulously in this film, co-written by Spielberg and Tony Kushner. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano play Mitzi and Burt, Sammy’s parents. Mitzi is a free spirit who aspired to be a concert pianist before marriage, and Burt is a 9-to-5 workhorse. While Mitzi and Burt are supportive of their son’s film endeavors, Mitzi sees Sammy’s films as inspiration for his possible career, while Burt sees them as more of a hobby.
It’s fun spotting the kernels of future Spielberg films, including hints of Jaws and Saving Private Ryan, among others. Only Spielberg knows how much of the film is truly autobiographical; in any case, the movie is perhaps his best, most-grounded depiction of a family relationship—and those are big words, because this guy has made a lot of movies.
LaBelle turns in a star-making turn as young Sammy/Steven. It’s a pretty daunting task to portray perhaps the greatest and most-beloved filmmaker to ever walk the Earth in his formative years, and LaBelle is most certainly up to the task.
Dano and Williams are both sublime as the troubled yet loving parents. The excellent supporting cast includes Seth Rogen, Judd Hirsch, Julia Butters, Jeannie Berlin and a famous director whose identity I won’t give away here.
The Fabelmans is a perfect encapsulation of a storied career. It does a wonderful job of showing what shaped the filmmaker, while also being a supreme example of the kind of movie that has made Spielberg such a legend. It’s one of his best.