In The Fabelmans, a kid growing up in post-war Arizona discovers a talent for making films with his Eagle Scout chums.
His mother, a talented pianist, encourages him. His father, an engineer in the new-fangled world of computers, calls it a hobby and would rather he dedicate his life to building real things that people can use.
Photo: Universal Pictures
If you have a passing acquaintance with the biography of the iconic film director Steven Spielberg, and the two-part documentary about his life that came out in 2017 and which is still available on the Neon streaming service, you will know that this premise makes The Fabelmans the closest thing to pure autobiography that Mr Spielberg has ever come up with.
In the past, he has sublimated the psychological and emotional impacts of his parents’ relationship difficulties inside his fantastical flights of fancy – Richard Dreyfuss’ losing his mind and his children in Close Encounters, Indiana Jones’ tempestuous relationship with his father in The Last Crusade, Elliott growing up with a single parent in ET, Christian Bale being separated from his parents in Empire of the Sun, forced to fend for himself.
On its surface, The Fabelmans is Spielberg’s attempt to understand and then forgive his parents and their unhappiness, but also to forgive himself for allowing his obsession with movie making to blind him to how they were feeling.
But he has nothing to forgive himself for. He was a kid and it’s your parents’ job to shield you from adult dramas and concerns – which for a lot of his childhood, they did.
Sammy Fabelman – played as a teenager and young adult by Spielberg dead-ringer Gabriel LaBelle – loves the magic of the movies and has a gift for understanding how they are put together.
With his Eagle Scout colleagues, he wins a photography merit badge by making a western inspired by The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, learning along the way that he can produce realistic looking muzzle flashes by poking holes in the film.
Burt Fabelman – Paul Dano – is a technical wizard himself, fixing radios and TVs to top up a meagre General Electric salary. But he can see that there is a future in computing and he has already uprooted the family once from New Jersey to Arizona in pursuit of that dream.
Mitzi Fabelman – Michelle Williams – is talented enough to be a professional pianist but her dreams are thwarted by motherhood and the 1950s.
Seth Rogen plays Uncle Benny – best pal of both Burt and Mitzi but also not actually an uncle.
By the time the family gets to California, and Burt’s dream job at IBM, Mitzi’s depression has begun to spiral out of control resulting in the surprise addition to the family of a pet monkey she calls Benny.
No matter how personal the story is for Spielberg, it isn’t all that novel for the rest of us. The secret weapon here is the screenwriter Tony Kushner, the writer of Spielberg’s better late period films including Munich, Lincoln and the wonderful version of West Side Story from Christmas 2021.
Kushner, better known as a playwright before coming into Mr Spielberg’s orbit – he wrote the masterpiece Angels in America – seems to bring out the best in Spielberg and it’s notable that this story that might have become maudlin if it had been left in Spielberg’s hands alone – too respectful, perhaps – has more laughs than anything I’ve seen of his in a while.
Some might see The Fabelmans as a Spielberg victory lap – if it is it’s a jog, not a sprint – but the love he shows for his parents and his gratitude for their love for him? Well, we could all do with a little bit more of that in our lives.
And it finishes with an absolute cracker of a closing shot – a laugh at his own expense, I think, but also a manifesto. Don’t be boring. And, while it can be a little meandering at times, it’s never boring.
THE FABELMANS is rated M for offensive language and is playing in cinemas across Aotearoa now.
