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The Fabelmans (Film Review)
There's a reason why Steven Spielberg didn't call this autobiographically inspired film some variation of Portrait of the Director as a Young Man For all that this is a coming of age tale for his alter ego Sammy, the Fabelman parents, Mitzi and Burt, are the other heart of this tale. (The first one being the "falling in love with the movies" story.) I can see why despite all the nominations, The Fabelmans underperformed at the awards, and it's not about quality. Not only did Steven Spielberg already get his share of Oscars (insert other type of awards as well), but for all that this is a meta story about film making - a genre which does in many case play to getting awards - , it's a very quiet, character driven one. There are no action sequences (though young Sammy directs his classmates in a war movie with those among other things, which works at the same time as Spielberg poking gentle fun at himself, and possibly the end of Saving Private Ryan). Other than two antisemitic bullies in the last quarter of the movie, there are no villains, and even they get moments of humanity the last time we see them.
This is possibly the most tender movie Spielberg ever directed. Not sentimental, which is more of a thing in Spielberg movies, tender.
Also with one of the most layered female characters, The Colour Purple excepted. Let's face it, female characters aren't the first that come to mind when thinking of his oeuvre. (No offense, Marion from the Indiana Jones movies, you're great. Also Agatha in Minority Report. But these aren't leads, and it's not their stories told.)( Speaking of Spielbeg making meta fun of himself, after teen!Sammy shoots that war movie with his buddies, his sisters want to know if he's ever going to shoot one with girls in them, where they actually get to do something and save the day.) But Mitzi Fabelman, played by Michelle Williams, is actually the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of this movie, and googling for reviews, I see I'm not the only one. This, I wasn't prepared for. Your avarage Spielbergian hero comes with good and occasionally bad father figures and/or daddy issues. Mothers tend to be absent or dead, Mary in E.T. excepted, and mother/son relationships just don't get examined with the kind of narrative attention father/son relationships get in movies, plays, books etc., to which Spielberg is no exception. Possibly because of fear of an oedipal aspect, and/or because mothers often are either saintly, dead or, more rarely, evil, with imperfection as given to Dads still are rare thing.
Now, Mitzi in The Fabelmans manages to be a mother and a person at the same time, by which I mean that while she's shown through Sammy's pov, his growing awareness that she has a life and personality that's not liimited to being his mother is part of the story, and a quintessential part of growing up that for all that Spielberg gave us many a young person's tale in his works I don't think he's done before. It's clear to the audience though not to still little, seven years old Sammy there's some desperation under the cheer early on (driving towards a tornado, OMG), and I love that teen Sammy's revelations about his mother aren't limited to the one that she's a sexual being but also that being a concert level pianist who had to give up being a professional for being a wife and mother who only gets to play the piano as a "hobby" left lingering scars and issues in her. I love that there's no artificial drama making Mitzi's eventual decision easier - husband Burt is loving and kind and understanding, not a domestic tyrant, and no one dies to remove options - , and that the last sentence we hear her say in the film is, about herself and Sammy both, that "you don't owe anyone your life". Show me the mother leaving her husband and son who isn't vilified or at least narratively punished in 99% of media. And Michelle Williams is fantastic - luminous, brittle, joyful, despairing, and you can't take your eyes of her whenever she's on screen, whether she's the focus of the scene or not. (BTW, I was wondering whether the blond bob style haircut was Spielberg's idea or hers, an then I saw the "making of" documentary, which has some photos of the late Leah, Spielberg's mother, and lo, she did have that haircut. I was thinking "1920s", Spielberg refers to it as "Peter Pan style", which suddenly made me wonder about his interest in that story. Not revisiting Hook, though. It's one of the few Spielberg films I genuinely dislike.)
This is not to say the rest of the cast is weak, anything but. Paul Dano as Burt is great. I was a bit confused when googling other reviews because some refer to him as "stern", and he's really not, but then I figured this is because he tries to persuade Sammy to become an engineer, like him. (Burt, like Arnold Spielberg, is an early computer engineer whiz.) Emphasis on "persuasion" here, he doesn't lay down the law. Burt referring to film making as his son's hobby when it's increasingly clear that it's more isn't out of authoritarian behaviour, but wishful thinking, and when push comes to shove he's supportive of Sammy's dreams. (Though of course the inappropriateness of the "hobby" designation earlier is something that mother and son share re: their artistic passions. Mitzi at one point observes that the family is split into scientists, who are Burt and their daughters, and artists, i.e. herself and Sammy.) He's also trying his best to be a good husband, sees that Mitzi is troubled before anyone else does and tries to help, but ultimately only Mitzi can help herself, and that Burt is so kind and understanding paradoxically heightens her difficulties. (It would be far easier to leave a demanding jerk!)
And then there's the whole "falling in love with the movies, becoming a film maker" thing, which is closely interwoven with the family arc. The sequence where Sammy, cutting and editing a home movie of their latest family vacation, realises in the editing process what is going on with his mother is rightfully singled out in a lot of reviews. It's both a stunning "showing the craft" sequence (in several senses of the word) and the big emotional turning point of the film. There are other movies in which you can see editing (old school, especially so since young Sammy only has his Super 8 stuff at this point) - Hitchcock about the making of Psycho comes to mind, for example -, but never inbibed with this much emotion, and you feel the growing realisation along with Sammy whle also being absorbed in the creative process.
On a very different mode is what Sammy does with his high school bullies late in the movie, which also works as a showcase of creation, emotional manipulation and editing. It demonstrates the power of creating an image against reality and trapping the real person in that image - but not an evil or stiupid image. What stuns and upsets Chad the high school bully and what he can't emotionally process is the recreation of himself as a hero and everyone's ensueing reaction to that image, which he knows he can't live up to. It's a very different kind of comeuppance than I had been expecting, while at the same time very fitting for this movie with its very humane depiction of people. As I said: the most tender work Spielberg ever has created.
This is possibly the most tender movie Spielberg ever directed. Not sentimental, which is more of a thing in Spielberg movies, tender.
Also with one of the most layered female characters, The Colour Purple excepted. Let's face it, female characters aren't the first that come to mind when thinking of his oeuvre. (No offense, Marion from the Indiana Jones movies, you're great. Also Agatha in Minority Report. But these aren't leads, and it's not their stories told.)( Speaking of Spielbeg making meta fun of himself, after teen!Sammy shoots that war movie with his buddies, his sisters want to know if he's ever going to shoot one with girls in them, where they actually get to do something and save the day.) But Mitzi Fabelman, played by Michelle Williams, is actually the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of this movie, and googling for reviews, I see I'm not the only one. This, I wasn't prepared for. Your avarage Spielbergian hero comes with good and occasionally bad father figures and/or daddy issues. Mothers tend to be absent or dead, Mary in E.T. excepted, and mother/son relationships just don't get examined with the kind of narrative attention father/son relationships get in movies, plays, books etc., to which Spielberg is no exception. Possibly because of fear of an oedipal aspect, and/or because mothers often are either saintly, dead or, more rarely, evil, with imperfection as given to Dads still are rare thing.
Now, Mitzi in The Fabelmans manages to be a mother and a person at the same time, by which I mean that while she's shown through Sammy's pov, his growing awareness that she has a life and personality that's not liimited to being his mother is part of the story, and a quintessential part of growing up that for all that Spielberg gave us many a young person's tale in his works I don't think he's done before. It's clear to the audience though not to still little, seven years old Sammy there's some desperation under the cheer early on (driving towards a tornado, OMG), and I love that teen Sammy's revelations about his mother aren't limited to the one that she's a sexual being but also that being a concert level pianist who had to give up being a professional for being a wife and mother who only gets to play the piano as a "hobby" left lingering scars and issues in her. I love that there's no artificial drama making Mitzi's eventual decision easier - husband Burt is loving and kind and understanding, not a domestic tyrant, and no one dies to remove options - , and that the last sentence we hear her say in the film is, about herself and Sammy both, that "you don't owe anyone your life". Show me the mother leaving her husband and son who isn't vilified or at least narratively punished in 99% of media. And Michelle Williams is fantastic - luminous, brittle, joyful, despairing, and you can't take your eyes of her whenever she's on screen, whether she's the focus of the scene or not. (BTW, I was wondering whether the blond bob style haircut was Spielberg's idea or hers, an then I saw the "making of" documentary, which has some photos of the late Leah, Spielberg's mother, and lo, she did have that haircut. I was thinking "1920s", Spielberg refers to it as "Peter Pan style", which suddenly made me wonder about his interest in that story. Not revisiting Hook, though. It's one of the few Spielberg films I genuinely dislike.)
This is not to say the rest of the cast is weak, anything but. Paul Dano as Burt is great. I was a bit confused when googling other reviews because some refer to him as "stern", and he's really not, but then I figured this is because he tries to persuade Sammy to become an engineer, like him. (Burt, like Arnold Spielberg, is an early computer engineer whiz.) Emphasis on "persuasion" here, he doesn't lay down the law. Burt referring to film making as his son's hobby when it's increasingly clear that it's more isn't out of authoritarian behaviour, but wishful thinking, and when push comes to shove he's supportive of Sammy's dreams. (Though of course the inappropriateness of the "hobby" designation earlier is something that mother and son share re: their artistic passions. Mitzi at one point observes that the family is split into scientists, who are Burt and their daughters, and artists, i.e. herself and Sammy.) He's also trying his best to be a good husband, sees that Mitzi is troubled before anyone else does and tries to help, but ultimately only Mitzi can help herself, and that Burt is so kind and understanding paradoxically heightens her difficulties. (It would be far easier to leave a demanding jerk!)
And then there's the whole "falling in love with the movies, becoming a film maker" thing, which is closely interwoven with the family arc. The sequence where Sammy, cutting and editing a home movie of their latest family vacation, realises in the editing process what is going on with his mother is rightfully singled out in a lot of reviews. It's both a stunning "showing the craft" sequence (in several senses of the word) and the big emotional turning point of the film. There are other movies in which you can see editing (old school, especially so since young Sammy only has his Super 8 stuff at this point) - Hitchcock about the making of Psycho comes to mind, for example -, but never inbibed with this much emotion, and you feel the growing realisation along with Sammy whle also being absorbed in the creative process.
On a very different mode is what Sammy does with his high school bullies late in the movie, which also works as a showcase of creation, emotional manipulation and editing. It demonstrates the power of creating an image against reality and trapping the real person in that image - but not an evil or stiupid image. What stuns and upsets Chad the high school bully and what he can't emotionally process is the recreation of himself as a hero and everyone's ensueing reaction to that image, which he knows he can't live up to. It's a very different kind of comeuppance than I had been expecting, while at the same time very fitting for this movie with its very humane depiction of people. As I said: the most tender work Spielberg ever has created.
no subject
This sounds like something I want to see.