The Fabelmans is the new film directed by Steven Spielberg and is co-written by him and Tony Kushner and concerns the young Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle) who when he sees the Greatest Show on Earth in a cinema becomes consumed by a desire to make movies for a living making many short films as he can when he gets the chance but while his mother (Michelle Williams) approves his father (Paul Dano) doesn’t and getting to make movies for a living is not easy but Sammy is determined to do so.
I was very much looking forward to this movie as I am a big Spielberg fan especially after seeing the Post and West Side Story which proved that he still has that masterful touch on occasion and this movie feels like a long time coming given that this movie is based on his own upbringing for the most part and the divorce of his parents something that has been in the works since ET but could this deliver a great film or feel somewhat too close to home.
Well sadly I must say that this movie is very disappointing for me and it bums me out to say this given how much I was looking forward to seeing it but before I delve more into why I want to touch on the positives firstly it is very well acted for the most part, LaBelle/Dano/Williams are all very good and anchor their scenes very well, Williams at times feels like she is in a different film as the free spirited mother but it didn’t feel like I was watching a performance from a different film, Dano is very good as the button downed Dad who at times is very cold and distant while LaBelle is very good as the young Sammy who looks like a mix between the young Spielberg and JJ Abrams.
My favourite performance however is by Judd Hirsch as Uncle Boris, he only has one scene but he damn near steals the movie as he talks about the need to do what you love even if it will break your heart and feel like a slog at times, it’s the one part of the film where I felt it really find a beating heart.
But the rest of the film sad to say mainly left me cold and unmoved and the main reason I feel this way is because for most of his career Spielberg has already touched on a lot of these elements and done them far better than he does here:
- The divorced parents he did in ET in fact that was the first conception of that film in Spielberg’s mind before he brought in the Alien element
- The cold and somewhat distant father who comes around in the end he did in Close Encounters and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which did this storyline note perfect
- The young kids off on an adventure well that was the Goonies and it isn’t a big part of this film but I felt it
- And lastly the young man determined to go and make his mark on the world as he comes of age well Back to the Future which Amblin produced (Spielberg was the one person who believed in that film when no one else did) did that better as well as did Joe Dante’s Gremlins
And in all of those movies these story beats did make me feel something and in the case of Last Crusade really got me emotionally whereas here I was left bored, unmoved by it all for the most part and checking my watch on a few occasions as at 151 minutes I felt that runtime especially towards the end of the film.
And so that was the Fablemans and it was not a moving Fable for me just a long recycled set of story points that Spielberg has touched on before and done a lot better and sometimes some stories filmmakers have are best left untold and this is not something I take any remote pleasure in saying especially as I was so keen for this movie but as they say in the classics you win some, you lose some, 1.5 out of 5.
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