Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 2 hours, 31 minutes
Director: Steven Spielberg
Quick Impressions:
On the drive home as we discussed the movie, my about-to-turn fourteen-year-old daughter said, “You wouldn’t be hurt, would you, if I said the mother/son relationship reminded me of me and you?”
And I answered, “Nope. It made me think of you and me, too.”
I feel a huge kinship with Mitzi Fabelman. I completely relate to this woman. Granted, I’m not a concert pianist, and I don’t even know Seth Rogen. (I’m also not Jewish.) But other than that, we’re identical twins. In an early scene, as she throws the kids into the car to chase a tornado, my daughter joked, “She’s just like you.” We laughed. Then five minutes later, she’s sobbing on the steering wheel, and I realized, “Oh! She is just like me!” (I want to ask, “Did your mom by chance have bipolar disorder, Steven Spielberg?”)
I find the message of this movie much more hopeful than most media I’ve been consuming lately. I relate to this woman, especially the moment when she’s resigned to remaining a good mother. I came to this revelation myself not long ago. (“Well, I may be a terrible person, but too bad. I have to remain alive and take care of my kids.”) I like her notion that we have to follow our heart sometimes. We just have to. That’s life. That makes much more sense to me than any other advice I’ve heard. I’m going to buy a monkey. (The people sitting next to us knew a guy who had a monkey, plus a ferret, a rabbit, and a skunk! As we overheard this during the closing credits, we decided, “There should be a movie about that guy!”)
I’ve also written about my own mother recently, so I’m pleased to see Steven Spielberg show his love for his mother in such an unflinching way. (I know this is fiction. I’m not sure how closely it adheres to Spielberg’s actual life. I’ll need to read up on that later. I’m so behind in movies. I’m trying to catch up as quickly as I can!)
My daughter decided, “As long as either Gabriel LaBelle or Michelle Williams wins an Oscar, I’ll be fine.” (She also decided that we have to see 80 for Brady. The trailer is like a mini-movie that airs every time we’re at the theater!) (It honestly looks kind of good.)
I would be stunned to see Gabriel LaBelle nominated for Best Actor. He gives a stellar performance (perhaps the film’s strongest), but since he’s so young and the lead actor, it’s much easier to imagine nominations for Michelle Williams and Paul Dano. (I can’t believe Dano’s old enough to play Steven Spielberg’s father. I was shocked to realize Little Miss Sunshine came out sixteen years ago. It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that Dano and Rogen are basically the same age.) I would love to see Michelle Williams finally win an Oscar for playing Steven Spielberg’s mother. That just seems like the way an Oscar (after multiple nominations) should finally be won.
My daughter was just singing the praises of Everything Everywhere All at Once, and now she likes The Fabelmans better. She said, “This is a good year for Oscar movies!” (We’ve seen like three!) (And I just realized today that while I was out of it this fall, our favorite movie theater permanently closed. A friend warned us over a year ago, but I never thought they’d really do it. That’s so sad!)
The Good:
The past several Steven Spielberg films I’ve seen have made me say, “This is the best movie Steven Spielberg has directed in a long time.” I’m beginning to realize maybe Steven Spielberg is having a career Renaissance (which is bizarre since he’s so prolific, works continuously, and always makes good movies). West Side Story was fantastic, though. And so is The Fabelmans. (Wouldn’t it be great to have the kind of career that makes people say, “This Best Picture nominated film is so much better than his past several Best Picture nominated films!”)
The Fabelmans is a great movie for families. We just realized we can buy it already. My daughter has decided we’re watching it again tomorrow, so my husband can see it. She left the theater excited to watch it again, gushing, “I could see that hundreds of times!”
I was slow to warm to the movie. If I’m being honest, part of me didn’t want to like it that much because I just watched two excellent movies back-to-back and thought, “I can’t love any more movies right now!” Once I read War and Peace and Things Fall Apart back-to-back, and it was so hard to get into another book. But this movie was good enough to break through my defenses. If you’re like me and grew up on a steady cinematic diet of Steven Spielberg movies, then practically everything that happens to young Sammy Fabelman will remind you of a Spielberg movie. I was born in 1979, so Steven Spielberg movies were a huge staple of my childhood (and adolescence) (and young adulthood) (and middle age).
This is an incredibly wholesome film (especially compared to Babylon, no orgies, no elephants, no vampire Tobey Maguire. There is a girl who’s like…in love with Jesus. Initially this made me so uneasy. I kept thinking, “This was your introduction to Christianity? Good lord!” I was so worried she would turn out to have horrible parents or the relationship would turn abusive. Instead she’s just really nice and happens to be in love with Jesus in a surprisingly literal way, sort of like if St. Teresa went to high school in California, I guess.)
If you love your family, but it’s not cookie-cutter perfect, this is a very affirming film. (I love the way they do the dishes! I’m doing them that way every night from now on.) (Well maybe not in 2022.) Every aspect of the movie works, so it’s hard to single out any one element for its excellence. What I mean is, the characters are well drawn, the performances are fantastic, everything looks great, sounds great. All the elements of the film are working together so seamlessly that you’re almost fooled into thinking you’re watching reality, like you’ve just stumbled upon this young filmmaker and his family, that you’re not approaching them through a fictional layer. Surely Michelle Williams is a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination, and I’d guess Spielberg is, too. (Probably Tony Kushner, as well.) (Maybe even John Williams.)
The best performance in the film is given by Gabrielle LaBelle. But Michelle Williams plays the most memorable character. I’m having so much trouble deciding how much of that is due to her performance. I mean, she’s playing the mother of the writer/director, and the film is about his relationship with his parents and their relationship with each other. She is the center of the story. He loves movies, and he loves his mother. He learns to understand his mother through movies. Williams is a very good actress, though. As a writer, I do connect easily to films about creating art. I’m driven to write, and I always have been. But the reason I particularly love this film is its exploration of Sammy’s mother. That relationship is portrayed so authentically, and both my daughter and I found the dynamic so relatable. I’m delighted to see such an eccentric, intermittently tortured person inspiring love left, right, and center.
The film also features some outstanding supporting performances. I love the way eccentric characters show up making memorable cameos or playing supporting roles in Sammy’s life. Judd Hirsch drops into the story briefly to make an impression. I wish I knew Steven Spielberg. Even his worst enemies look much more interesting here than they probably do in real life. Seth Rogen, Jeannie Berlin, Julia Butters (the little girl in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), and Chloe East are very engaging in supporting roles.
My mother used to love reading my journals about our family and wanted me to write Little Women. (Louisa May Alcott already did that. I used to tell her that the book she wanted me to write was the book she needed to write. If she knows the contents of the entire book that I should write, then that’s her book.) But I also like finding characters around me and relaying situations. (I do it on the page, and not remotely as well as Spielberg does it on the screen.) But this exploration of the transformation of reality into fiction (and blurring of the boundary between them) always fascinates me, and here it’s done exceptionally well, so artfully that it feels artless. As far as I’m concerned, that’s always been his greatest strength as a filmmaker. He just shows us what’s there, but it wouldn’t look nearly as interesting if we were the ones showing it, you know. (The movie explores this idea a bit, too. I love the sequence near the end about the film Sammy makes for Ditch Day, and the fallout.)
My daughter got extremely excited when the movie opens at a showing of The Greatest Show on Earth. (Why are so many filmmakers inspired by trains?) We watched all the Best Picture winners up to 2006. (My seven-year-old stays up later than she does, and The Departed is not easy to watch with a young child around.) I’ll watch any movie about why people love movies because I love movies. And I love this fictionalized incarnation of Spielberg’s mom so much that maybe I’ll even learn to love myself. He has such a kind eye.
Best Scene:
I wish I were an artist of the caliber of Steven Spielberg. (I’m sure I’m not alone there.) But I so relate to the moment when Sammy tries to communicate with his mother using the film he made of their camping trip. Instead of saying a word to her, he shuts her in the closet to watch his movie. Because he’s a brilliant filmmaker, this works perfectly. I communicate this way, too, by writing novels. (I’m not as gifted as Steven Spielberg, though. Usually people read the novels, and instead of understanding, they say, “What the hell are you talking about?”) But I also communicate through art. I love this touching, heart-wrenching, agonizing moment between mother and son.
Best Scene Visually/Most Oscar Worthy moment, Gabriel LaBelle:
When Sammy edits together the footage of the camping video, what he sees is so telling. LaBelle is wonderful in this scene. What’s astonishing is that he is the camera man who took the footage. And the entire family is gathered on the camping trip. Nothing is being hidden. And yet he doesn’t discover what’s happening until he takes a close look, trying to piece together a movie.
My daughter got excited about the use of color in The Fabelmans. As the end credits rolled, she started excitedly talking about color. She pointed out how often the family home is shown in blue and white, and the family wears blue and white. When the Christmas lights are taken down, every house in the neighborhood turns out to be almost identical, indistinguishable. They only look different when the Christmas lights are up. (She’s so excited about this. I’m expecting her essay on the color scheme in the movie any time.)
Best Action Sequence:
For a film about a family, this has a surprising number of riveting action sequences. I guess that makes sense because Spielberg has such a gift for delivering both spectacle and heart.
The film completely won my heart when Sammy’s mom briefly turns storm chaser and packs the kids into the car. I so relate to this woman. My daughter finds Mitzi’s behavior here analogous to her son’s behavior as he’s looking through the camping footage. She says, “They both come right up to the danger. They have to follow it. So they come right up to it and look it in the eye, then realize they have to turn back.”
I just love Mitzi. I’m totally in awe of the way she does the dishes. I hope to God my daughter turns out like Steven Spielberg so all my moral failings are transformed into charming eccentricities. (I’m not saying using disposable dinnerware is a moral failing. It’s just that this movie gave me such a feeling of hope. So what if I’m not normal, you know?)
Most Oscar Worthy moment, Michelle Williams:
I can’t decide if I’m more taken with the slap or the apology for the slap. I really relate to this mother. I also think of certain moments with my own mother. (I’ve been struggling lately, unsure of how much to share about my life. I don’t think portraying someone as they are is unaffectionate. It can be done, as it is here, with nuance, honesty, and love.) I’m trying to decide how much of what I love about the character is due to the writing/direction, and how much is Michelle Williams’s performance. I often have this difficulty with Spielberg’s movies since they always give you the feeling that he’s just turning the camera on, and that’s just what’s happening. (But I mean, that’s deceptive. Look at the first cut of the camping video, vs. the one Sammy shows the family.)
I love the line she gets near the end about not owing anyone your life. (She didn’t write that, but she delivers it awfully well.) (I would love to know the originator of the line. How strictly autobiographical is this? Did Tony Kushner write that, Steven Spielberg, Steven Spielberg’s mother?)
Most Oscar Worthy moment, Paul Dano:
I feel terribly sorry for Dano’s character, but I also find him frustrating. Sometimes I think deliberate refusal to see something is a violent act in a way. His best scene probably comes at the very end of the movie.
The Negatives:
This movie feels so much longer than Babylon, yet its runtime is thirty-seven minutes less. I think what makes the film feel so long is Spielberg’s methodical pace, and the fact that we’re experiencing Sammy’s entire childhood and watching him grow up. At no point did I ever think, “I’m bored,” or, “This is dragging.” In fact, I’m going to watch it again tomorrow. But it’s a slow 151 minutes!
If you don’t like the movie, you may be irritated to be watching, The Steven Spielberg Story: the Story of the Greatest American Filmmaker by Steven Spielberg. (At times that did occur to me. If I made a film celebrating myself like this, I’d be laughed out of the theater. But a) My film would be very bad because I don’t know how to make films, and b) I mean, he’s Steven Spielberg. Look at his filmography. If you watch the movies, you’ll notice they’re all conspicuously good. I mean, maybe they’re not all perfect, but come on. He’s obviously been doing something right all these years. If he wants to make a feel good movie about his family and why he loves them and himself, great!
Also, this is an extremely nuanced look at divorce and why marriages break up that instead of being depressing, celebrates love, family, and life. This is an honest, unflinching look at why sometimes marriage doesn’t work. Usually movies like that are demoralizing and exhausting even when they’re done well. This is the most happy, wholesome divorce movie I’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t achieve that by being dishonest and faking happiness. It’s a good film.
Overall:
My daughter loves this movie so much she’s making her father watch it tomorrow and planning to write a review herself. We really enjoyed The Fabelmans although I do not like this new way of consuming potential Oscar nominees. I’m starting too late and only watching films that are very likely to be nominated. That is a horrible mistake because they’re all excellent, making it hard to pick a favorite!