The Fabelmans is a great movie. While Sam Fabelman is the main character, this is still an autobiographical story of Spielberg's childhood, his family, discovering movies, and his growth in making films. Spielberg wrote, produced, and directed the film, and it is a masterpiece of direction, sound design, and editing. While I'm not a huge Michelle Williams fan, she was amazing as Sam/Steven's mom, giving an amazing performance in a very physically and emotionally wrought role. Plus she shows off her real piano playing skills.
John Williams did the music, so the sound design and editing of the music with the scenes in the movie, and in Sam's films is beautifully done.
Well worth the watch just as a movie, but all the more for anyone who is a fan of Steven Spielberg's and would appreciate how he came to love making movies.
The slow motion crumbling of a marriage that just so happens to shape a child that will go on to effect an entire industry and multiple generations. Sometimes real life is just so on the nose.
I don’t get it, am I watching a different movie. Made it about a 1/3 way through. Tried skipping forward but just have no drive to finish it. Boring, long, no connection to characters.
It's an OK movie. Nothing extraordinary or magical. It just lacked that sense of wonder. It was straightforward and dry.
Spielberg had so many opportunities to add the stories that he himself has told so many times. For example I remember him saying how shocked he was when as a kid he saw Holocaust survivors with tattoo numbers on their hands. Why not add that in the movie? Why not add the kid seeing and hearing WWII stories from soldiers? Why not add all these small details that later make him the person he is in life? Focusing just on the family drama wasn't that interesting or emotional.
Sort of neat but way too long and kind of full of itself. Still, I really loved seeing the stuff with Spielberg's old home movies and you-know-who in the final scene was great. Obvious oscar bait but also sort of fun.
"When horizon's at the top it's interesting, when horizon's at the bottom it's interesting, when horizon's in the middle it's boring as shit"
Well this was an interesting movie, with a compelling plot, beautiful shots, and at times a bit slow pacing. Everything that makes a good movie, it had. But for me it lacked in originality and some emotional parts were simply glossed over. I don't want to go into detail not to spoil the movie but even though story wanted to stay close to life and something real with depiction of family problems, then it just randomly decides to glance that over and resolve it, which leaves the viewer unsatiated. Which could be my only criticisms of the movie.
Overall a good movie, though not in the great league. 6/10
[9.0/10] There are scads of films about the magic of moviemaking. Hollywood can't resist the self-flattery. Audiences enjoy the suggestion that they’re doing something special. And more charitably, despite all the crap that comes with showbiz, when done right, the end product can genuinely move hearts and dazzle the eye. That is worth celebrating.
But The Fabelmans is the rare movie about the power of film, where that power is not feted, not treated as an unambiguous good. Instead, it’s a force that reveals, that shapes, that scares, and that pierces.
Yes, it can be used to make kids playing in the desert look like a wild west shootout. And it can be used to turn a boy scout troop’s ramshackle project into a poignant meditation on the cost of war. But it can also be used to turn an antisemitic young bully into a golden god, and force him to see what he might be in a way that breaks him. And it can be used to peer into the heart of someone you love deeply, even if finding what lies there might break you.
The “you” in that sentence is Sammy, a plain stand-in for director, co-writer, and prime contender for cinema’s greatest living auteur, Steven Spielberg. The Fabelmans is, true to the spirit of autobiographical coming-of-age movies, a story about how he discovered a love of film that spurred him to the career he’s become renowned for. From being mesmerized by the spectacle of The Greatest Show on Earth, to gathering his friends to make elaborate backyard pictures, to cutting together home movies to cheer up his mom, you can see the roots of Sammy, and Spielberg’s obsession evolve and take hold over the years.
Except that it’s not a simple tale of a young man finding his passion. It is, instead, about how art sometimes sits uncomfortably with the rest of life, including family life. In a volcanic one-scene wonder, Judd Hirsch cameos as Sammy’s Great Uncle Boris, he lays out the central dilemma. Sammy has that pull toward art, but also a pull toward his family, and the tension between the two will tear him apart. The turmoil of having to live with both, will eventually prompt people like them to pick one, and the choice will be gut-wrenching no matter what.
That's particularly true because Sammy, like all children, carries parts of both of his parents. He has a special kinship with his mother, Mitzi, who encourages his passion and imagination and seemingly had the talent to be a world-class piano player herself. Still, Sammy has the determination of his father, a vision and focus that drives him to channel those artistic abilities with conviction. Sammy gravitates toward his mom, who recognizes his artistry, and struggles with his dad, who treats it as an unreal and unserious hobby.
Despite that balance, Sammy’s life and art turn upside down when cutting together footage of a camping trip reveals something awful -- that his mother is cheating on his father with their family friend, Uncle Benny. It rocks Sammy’s relationship with his mother and his view of their father, and the ripples of the discovery steadily shake and eventually cleave the family.
In that, The Fabelmans is not just a story of one artistic kid’s ascension to auteur status. Nor is it even a more complex meditation on the crushing power of art, with consequences harsher than the gauzy hues of more laudatory films-about-films. It is, true to the title, a movie centered on the domestic life of a family with something dark and delicate underneath the bliss.
Spielberg injects the slices of life that make period pieces and personal reflections fun. In one expertly-cut sequence, the nights of Chanukah progress and Sammy’s model train grows with it. The antisemitism Sammy faces in Northern California rubs the audience raw with the frank depiction of bullying Jewish children face for simply being who they are. A bizarre but hilarious interlude with a prospective Christian girlfriend who seems to find his religious status exotic tickles the funny bone with well-observed bizarreness. And David Lynch, of all people, nearly steals the show as a blunt and to-the-point John Ford whose advice on composition is taken by Sammy and, in one of the film’s cutest moments, by his real life equivalent.
But Spielberg and co-writer/frequent collaborator Tony Kushner also inject plenty of uncomfortable moments of a family in various states of crisis, both acknowledged and unacknowledged. Family dinners turn into shouting matches. Mitzi has psychotic breaks both large and small. Children make accusations of parents and parents push back on their children. There is physical violence, insinuations of who knows what, and breakdowns of all stripes when the family itself is rent in twain by the places in which passion and pragmatism cannot coexist.
This is not a happy lookback on the pristine family who spurred a filmmaker to greatness. It is a loving but often dark reflection on the widening cracks beneath the surface of a loving but unhappy home. Not since Close Encounters of the Third Kind has Spileberg taken such an unflinching look at illness and discord rendering a family asunder.
That look is buoyed, as always, by Spielberg's incredible direction and the expert cinematography of frequent partner and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński. To the extent The Fabelmans indulges in standard “power of film” lionizing, it comes in the form of eye-catching sequences where a young Sammy projects the train crash that's so enraptured him onto his hands, symbolizing film’s incredible ability to capture the awe-inspiring in a tiny frame. The spin of Spielberg’s ever moving camera around Sammy as he cuts his movie together conveys the way in which this art, and the act of its creation, can be a world unto itself.
There is a loving focus in the depiction of actual film-making, communicated as much in the visual language of the film as in moments where a fellow boy scout goes from asking Sammy, “So you want me to, like, act and stuff?” to sinking so far into the emotion of the scene that he all but needs to be rescued after the aspiring director yells “cut!”
As transcendent as that depiction is, the artists’ fire that burns in the heart of Uncle Boris and Mitzi and Sammy, comes with its cost. As much as Sammy cannot live without his filmmaking, in the end, Mitzi cannot live without Benny. He feeds that passionate, artistic side of her in a way the noble and gentle Burt cannot, and in the end, it causes her to do that selfish thing she can't deny herself. It causes pain, and hardship, and struggles for everyone. But the same thing that pushes Sammy to forget school and follow the dream that feeds him, spurs his mother to leave and follow hers.
Maybe that's why he forgives her, a mutual understanding that bloomed in a coat closet refuge of projections and imagination, and blossomed in two adults who understand how someone could make that sort of choice to put your head in the lion’s mouth, literally and figuratively. The closeness, the similarity between them, brings pain but also connection, the kind between a mother and her son that isn’t often vindicated on the silver screen.
But maybe that too is the point. More parochial pictures focus on Shakespeare in Love-style literalism in their look-back on the formative moments of great creators. A chance meeting here, a key image there, must become the most iconic parts of their collected works.
The Fabelmans goes several fathoms deeper than that, though. It asks the question how a young Spielberg gathered the material that would become the core of his films, and the impetus for his calling. But it answers both questions in a more oblique, cutting way than the film’s less exacting counterparts.
Mitzi herself gives away the game early in the movie. Witnessing the train crash from Greatest Show stirred something in young Sammy. The stimulation, the explosive imagery, the emotion of the moment overwhelmed it. The ability of the humble camera to capture such bewildering experiences, then, gives him an opportunity to hold them in place, to process them, and in the ultimate act of self-assurance, to control them.
For all the risk of hagiographic or putting cinema on a pedestal, The Fabelmans does not deify its subject or his art. But it recognizes where that need to control came from, and the familial and psychological train wreck that drove him deeper and deeper to the comforts that only transfixing the grandest emotions and experiences with light and celluloid can provide.
In that, by capturing his own life, his own journey, his own mixed-up yet precious family between the same frames, Spielberg reaches the recursive peak of that idea. And I hope such a remarkable film gives him the peace and assurance his stand-in needed then, and he may still have needed now.
I enjoyed my time with this one, but something about it felt a little hollow and incomplete. I enjoyed following Sammys life as he lived through the blossoming of videography and film technology, and being lucky enough to be on the forefront of contemporary film creation. You can almost feel the nostalgia and rose tinted memories Spielberg has for this time of his life, much the way most of us have fond memories of our childhood and growing up. But there is no real connective throughline, there is no start and end point, it is a slice-of-life in the truest sense of the phrase. I can't deny that the film is well shot, well made, makes constant nudges and winks to the audience about film making techniques and cameo appearances, but something about it felt a little incomplete. Maybe that's the nature of an autobiographical picture such as this, it's more a collection of memories and set pieces that comprise this portion of Stevens life, but as a movie viewing experience I found it a little unrounded and narratively unsatisfying. But maybe that's the point?
Still, gorgeously shot and interesting from a technical perspective, The Fabelmans is a love letter to the process of making movies and the worlds they let us escape to and inhabit. While I don't think any one performance stands out as exceptional in this, the actual look, feel and makeup of this movie will probably take some of the awards come Oscar season, and probably rightly so. It just didn't tick all the boxes for me to think that it's worthy of a Best Picture or Best Actor/Actress nomination.
too self-congratulatory even for a genius like Spielberg
This is essentially Spielberg's Almost Famous. It's way too sentimental and white, which is a complaint that's often thrown at Spielberg's work (one I don't always agree with myself), but this is undeniably him at his schmaltziest. Every genuine emotion is buried under such a deep layer of cheese that the entire picture ends up feeling phony and disingenuous to me. There's an unironic record scratch sound effect in here at some point, and it's just so corny. Michelle Williams is also a major victim of the direction, her performance and the dialogue she's given are awful. The other performances are passable at best, with Gabriel LaBelle and Paul Dano being the clear standouts. Visually I did not find the movie to be that compelling, it's overly reliant on a generic orange/teal color grade, but there are some strong moments that illustrate the power of visual filmmaking very well. John Williams' score is probably one of his most forgettable ones, it sounded like a composer who's trying to do an imitation of Alexandre Desplat. I just don't really see the overall appeal. Emotionally it clearly doesn't work for me, but I also find it to be lacking in substance. We don't learn that much about Spielberg as a filmmaker or artistic force, it's mostly focussed on him as a person, which doesn't interest me as much. He probably poured his soul into this project, but to me it's a perfect example that artists should not be in charge of their own memoir, because it doesn't focus on the interesting stuff.
4/10
Like a photograph of oatmeal taken with a CANON Eos R6 II: technically perfect but still boring.
To kill time during the slow parts, I watched the guy in front of me play games on his phone. Seriously. At least I wasn't the only one who thought Spielberg overestimated how interesting his childhood was.
This was also the first film in a while I watched someone walk out on. So, you may cancel me for my opinion but I am not alone.
This film is totally not for me. What I expected were like the stories behind creative director, how he came up with new film techniques or what’s inspired him to film directing. What’s I get from this film is the surface level of those I’d expected and a tons of family drama that seems over the top. I’ve no idea why all adult characters in this film seem overacting and not being like real people with flaws. When I’m not believed or not emotionally connected with any character, it’s made me difficult to get through the entire film.
I expected magic, I got pathos, stereotypes, and a lack of subtlety.
Only the scenes involving the filmmaking itself could really captivate me.
Too bad about the missed opportunities.
The Fabelmans is a well crafted and acted movie that will delight fans of cinema.
It's a bit overrated (98% on RT?!) as any movie that is about making movies tends to be, but even considering that it's still great.
Amazing film. Spielberg is rightfully one of the greatest directors of our time. Such a compelling story mixed in with spectacular performances by the young lead actor and Michelle Williams. An easy 10/10 for me.
It’s really a whites only movie. I watched it because there is a Kyle XY clone as the main character.
Sammy Fabelman: ”I made you look like you could fly!”
It's been a while since I've watched such cute movie.
Steven Spiel story, watched the first half on plane
It's good; Spielberg's still got it. But Pompo did it better.
This is a Spielberg hail-mary at an Oscar winning movie. It certainly works well, which is the least surprising thing you have read all day. It is Spielberg after all. While I think a big demographic out there will love this a bunch more than I do, I can comfortably say this is a notch down from my personal favorite Spielberg. Some parts feel a bit forced, not the top level of charm, and the runtime was quite lengthy. Those are small knocks though considering this is a pretty great movie, just not one I would casually watch.
Rating: 4/5 - 8.5/10 - Would Recommend
The first hour really wasn't my thing, but after that it got better and better. Even with co-stars like Michelle Williams and Paul Dano it was Gabriel Labelle who brought it home for me. I thought he was a very believable Steven Spielberg and he played the role with some welcome playfulness.
While scenes focused on Spielberg’s relationship with movies felt poetic and inspired, the human drama bits felt a little too bland and artificial for my taste, with the same schmaltzy kitsch staging and acting as his old movies. The scene with the uncle dramatically killed my attention span, yet there were a few inspiring moments and memorable scenes along the way to make the experience worthwhile.
With what is probably the most personal film of his career, Steven Spielberg proves that he is still a master of his craft. "The Fabelmans" is the director's love letter to the cinema and filmmaking. At the same time, Spielberg processes the formative moments of his childhood and youth. Of course, he has done that in numerous earlier films as well, but here you additionally discover where his fascination for the many recurring themes in his works comes from.
Spielberg has always been good at getting strong performances out of his actors, working wonders with child actors in particular. Again, the young actors are good here. Michelle Williams and Paul Dano are also convincing as the parents of the main characters, though I believe both have already done better work elsewhere. The most impressive, however, was definitely Judd Hirsch. With his brief appearance, he captures everyone's attention.
There is not too much to criticize overall. Spielberg occasionally veers too far into self-therapy. In addition, some characters are a bit underdeveloped or one-dimensional. And the film is not as visually impressive as "West Side Story", for example. But Spielberg definitely succeeds in capturing the era perfectly and at the same time triggering a whole range of strong emotions in the audience. The entire final sequence is then the perfect ending, so you walk out of the film with a comforting feeling.
"The Fabelmans" was a complete success for me from start to finish. As long as Spielberg is still capable, let him make many more films if he can keep up the quality. I will watch them all!
Babylon and The Fabelmans differ in many ways. Pacing. Style. Tone. The former's disturbing use of elephant excrement and even more disturbing use of Tobey Maguire. Despite their many differences, they do share a common thread: a focus on the magic of filmmaking (or in the case of Babylon, a deconstruction of the magic of filmmaking). Given my love for filmmaking, I was looking forward to both. Unfortunately, neither lived up to my expectations; though, for very different reasons. I won't rehash my review of Babylon (feel free to read it on my profile), but suffice it to say, while that film suffered from excess, this film struggled with the opposite. Characters take precedent over plot, and though the performances were generally excellent, the character dynamics felt more strange than compelling. To some, I'm sure that strangeness will be worthy of praise, perhaps characterized as unique. But to me, it was just strange. Combine that strangeness with a somewhat jumpy structure and an ending that felt abrupt, and you have a recipe for an underwhelming experience.
All of that said, this is Spielberg. The craft is excellent and there are certainly moments that shine. As with Babylon, I enjoyed all of the scenes that actually deal with filmmaking and I can't help but be amazed at the process for making home movies during this period. I'd also highlight Gabriel LaBelle, who is excellent in the central role. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him in the coming years.
Excellent first half. The second had some weaknesses: a bit too much American goodness and melancholy, and a bit repetitive. Among the recent series of nostalgic films, definitely the best, though it is still a blockbuster and not an arthouse film.
Speilberg's latest work is a great film and an excellent autobiography. The characters all feel very real, each dealing with their own unique challenges, and comprise an excellent retelling of Spielberg's childhood. Combined with Speilberg's masterful directing, an enthralling score, and a heavy dose of nostalgia throughout, The Fabelmans succeeds magnificently in exactly what it sets out to do.
There are some truly brilliant moments in Spielberg's semi autobiographical movie. The filmmaking efforts of young Fabelman are particularly delightful. It's another magical piece of work from the master director and one that never outstays its welcome.
In my (very amateur) career of appreciating and reviewing movies I seemed to have hit a point where I rarely take notes on movies as I watch them. I think there are two reasons for this. The first reason is that I have seen so many movies that I am not nearly as motivated to write reviews, let alone taking notes as I watch the movies. I used to write long-form reviews of movies but that just wasn't possible as life grew more complicated.
The second reason is that - after having gone back through the years and watch so many great movies - it is hard to find good movies in the present. Sure, there are three or four that come out every year that really grab me. Seeing as I watch 150ish movies a year, those three or four are very sparse (and usually towards the end of the year).
About twenty minutes into this movie I could easily tell that there was something extraordinary going on. On the surface this seemed like it would follow along the lines of other movies where someone was remembering their past. This movie isn't that, and couldn't be less that. As you probably know, the movie is written and directed by Spielberg and it is supposed to be an autobiographical account of his life growing up. Speilberg chose to come up with fictional names for the characters in the movie - that added a fantastic new dimension to the movie that is difficult to explain. I think where the movie really excels is that it isn't a retelling of everything that happened to Spielberg and his family. The film has a three dimensional aspect to the story (accentuated by color and song) that I don't think that I've ever seen before.
The movie can probably be broken down into two different themes. While it isn't necessarily obvious, the first half of the movie is about his parents. While Paul Dano is amazing in an understated role as the father, it is Michelle Williams that is absolutely hypnotizing in her role as the mother. She is so incredibly magnetic in her scenes... I don't think I've better from her in any of her other movies (and she has done so many amazing films). The second half of the movie is a bit more autobiographical as the young filmmaker begins to understand his family (and the world) through his amateur filmmaking. The entire movie is capped off with an incredible scene at the end that I won't spoil here. For me, this was the best movie of the year.
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Steven Spielberg's most personal film presents us with a slightly autobiographical portrait of his childhood and youth linked to cinema. As a cinephile, I found the movie very moving. Some people find something so wonderful in the cinema that not everyone understands; some watching movies, some making movies. The beauty of this film lies in the emotions it captures and transmits, especially through the eyes of a child and young man who is discovering life with his family while his passion for cinema grows within him. The main element of the film is his performances: Michelle Williams, Judd Hirsch and Paul Dano (wow, Paul Dano!). However, since the central plot is how the protagonist connects and conceives his life with the cinema, I know that its two and a half hours can be long for many. It didn't seem like the great movie I was expecting, but it certainly moved me at various times and made me smile as I identified with it. When did cinema become so important to my life? I do not remember. But I can't conceive of my life without him.
Rated a Connor 5, normal 7.4
Urghhh this was so good. Truly beautiful, it was sweet, poignant, and felt raw. It was this beautiful homage to creativity and passion; it felt like a hug. It was shot beautifully as, I was nostalgic to something I haven’t experienced, yet after this I have
Well done movie, actually kind of sad when you watch all they go through.
I went in with pretty low expectations, how interesting could a movie be about a film director?
How refreshing to watch a movie with considered character development, a story that ebbs and flows. In an age of abundant superhero movies it’s a joy to watch something that keeps it simple, and just nails the basics. A great watch.
its a solid and good movie. makes fun to watch but overall nothing really special.
It's a beautiful movie and Paul Dano's acting is amazing
Not anywhere as good or what I expected it to be based on the preview.
Pleasant enough movie worth watching.
Glad I didn't have to pay for it though.
7/10
There are many shots that are reminiscent of other Steven Spielberg films, perhaps as a self-homage or simply as intuitive cinematographic resources, but they work not only as a strictly self-referential look but as a vindication of a cinema that is no longer made. A personal portrait of the relationship between mother and son, the sisters are surprisingly blurred, but in the end it is a resoundingly classic family drama, which reflects on the way in which cinema becomes an instrument of communication to express traumas and the insecurities. And to celebrate those movie theaters that seem as archaic as dinosaurs.
:heart:x7
The acting, production, directing etc. are all great. However, I don't think I would recommend it although there are plenty of folks who will definitely like this movie.
For me, the heavy-handed drama was a bit much. It is heartfelt and heart-breaking.
How I rate:
1-3 :heart: = seriously! don't waste your time
4-6 :heart: = you may or may not enjoy this
7-8 :heart: = I expect you will like this too
9-10 :heart: = movies and TV shows I really love!
Shout by BobDole12BlockedParent2023-01-04T02:09:12Z
men will literally direct a 2½-hour Oscar bait movie before going to therapy /s