Steven Spielberg is inarguably one of the Great American Directors.  Hitchcock, Altman, Ford, Eastwood.  His name deserves to be uttered in the same breath as these other legends.  Before you grab your cinephile pitchforks and cry ‘blasphemy’—I’m speaking solely of his contribution to pop culture, and to popcorn entertainment.  This is the man who brought us instantly and enduringly iconic films such as Jaws, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park, to name a few.  He knows how to create rousing, stirring summer tentpoles that are unmatched in their craft. And now, after five decades of entertaining the masses, Spielberg returns to the multiplex with a deeply personal, semi-fictionalized look back at his childhood, which serves as both a love letter to his parents (particularly his mother) and to the art of movie-making.  Because, as the old adage goes, “50 for them, 1 for me.” The result is one of Spielberg’s most intimate works, a feel-good that will tug at your heartstrings even as the picture it paints is vaguely problematic.

The movie opens on January 10, 1952, as the Fabelmans, a seemingly idyllic New Jersey family, go to the movies to see The Greatest Show on Earth.  We see a close-up of young Sammy’s face as he’s awed by a sequence in which a train derails catastrophically. With his mouth agape and the wonder in his eyes, it’s clear the movie’s resonated with him. On the way back from the movie theater, riding with his two sisters and his parents, Burt (Paul Dano) and Mitzi (Michelle Williams, sporting an intense blonde bob), Sammy looks stunned, even as they finally get home—which Mitzi semi-playfully complains is the only dark house on the block, since the family is Jewish. From here, we witness Sammy’s increasing infatuation with cinema.  He receives a Lionel train for Hanukkah and proceeds to use a home video camera to recreate the train-crash sequence in impressive fashion, especially for a 6-year old.

His family initially seems to be picture-perfect, his parents perfectly balancing each other out. Burt is a computer engineer working for RCA while Mitzi is a creative type, a concert pianist.  Added to this is “Uncle” Bennie (Seth Rogen) who works with Burt and is a fixture at the dinner table, bringing a levity and warmth that is missing in Burt…and much appreciated by Mitzi. As Sammy stages increasingly elaborate home movies, we start to see the cracks, the rough edges in the family.  At one point, after an argument with Burt, Mitzi takes the kids in the car to go see a nearby tornado, ignoring the very real danger and stopping only after a power line is downed and they drive through a field of sparks. This scene appears to reflect the director’s skill and fascination with staging elaborate action sequences, and subtly implies that his pyrotechnics are actually borne of traumatic experiences from his childhood. On a more immediate level, it telegraphs Mitzi’s psychological instability and the eventual fracture of their family unit.

The film quickly settles into a reliable rhythm in which young Sammy becomes exponentially more proficient as a filmmaker, even as drama brews at home. Though much happens in the family’s lives—they move to Arizona, then Northern California, then Los Angeles—the movie overall feels fairly static, with not much to speak of in terms of character arcs.  From the first time we meet Sammy as a teenager (played confidently by Gabriel LaBelle for much of the movie), he’s already a well-adjusted, kind, smart, empathetic person with few if any character deficiencies. He’s extremely likeable, almost to a fault. 

The most complex character arc, and presumably intended to be the heart of the film, belongs to Mitzi.  She’s arguably the most human of all the characters, the most flawed, as her decisions lead to the disintegration of the family unit.  Many of the film’s biggest emotional beats belong to her, such as in one touching, discomfiting interlude in which she’s inebriated on a family camping trip, dancing languidly in front of the car’s headlights, her body laid bare for everyone to see in her sheer nightgown. Even as her mental health and the family deteriorate, she and Sammy continue to maintain an unshakably strong bond.  This is where Spielberg’s reach exceeds his grasp.

He appears to be trying to make the point that certain bonds are forever, that love can persist even when one of the people involved has done lasting damage to the relationship.  It unfortunately feels hollow, though, which I chalk up to the script’s lack of emotional depth, and Williams’ over-the-top acting.  I love her work in general, but she seems to be operating on a different plane than her scene mates. When paired with Dano’s relatively naturalistic approach, her theatrical over-acting reminded me of Doubt and the clash between Philip Seymour Hoffman’s and Meryl Streep’s acting styles. Part of this reaction may be influenced by my own emotional baggage, as I have personal childhood experience with the subject matter.  For me, it takes an unusually high level of emotional intelligence and nuance to depict issues such as divorce and adultery in a realistic manner. The argument that the film is attempting to make would’ve been far more successful in the hands of someone with a more European sensibility. But then it wouldn’t have been a film by Spielberg. (A late-film shot comes very, very close to achieving this. Upon receiving a letter from Mitzi, Burt stands up, his shadow behind him clearly resembling Michelle Williams’ character, with the distinct bob haircut. It’s a lovely visual that does more to telegraph their connectedness more than the script ever does.)

A special shout-out goes to Judd Hirsch, who shows up for literally five minutes as the enigmatic Uncle Boris.  He appears to be the only person who truly sees Sammy, and pulls from his own show-business history to impart invaluable life-lessons, saying, “Art is painful. It’ll tear your heart out and leave you lonely.” Hirsch is such an animated, prickly, entertaining figure that it feels like he’s on loan from a different movie altogether.  His whirlwind presence ends so quickly that it’s almost hard to believe he was ever there, and his absence is felt. It’s not that the rest of the movie is devoid of energy, but the storytelling is so predictable that you’ll find yourself missing his agent of chaos.

Though the relationship between Sammy and Mitzi is meant to be the crux of the film, for me, the most enjoyable scenes are the ongoing discourse regarding the power of filmmaking.  Sammy is a bit of a passive character, almost a victim, and using the camera increasingly grants him a power that he lacks in everyday life.  Holding the camera allows him to shape reality, and to manipulate others.  At one point, he makes Mitzi watch an alternate version of the camping trip home movie, showing her what he knows of her infidelities. The experience crushes her, prompting her to crawl on the floor, away from the projector. 

Later on, the high school recruits him to film the senior ‘Ditch Day’ and to screen his video for the whole school.  His film shows some of the kids, including his bullies, running in slow motion in the sand. It’s a beautifully shot sequence, evoking Chariots of Fire and countless rousing sports film montages. After seeing the film, one of his bullies confronts him and demands to know why Sammy portrayed him that way.  It’s such a flattering, idealized portrayal that the bully feels he’ll never live up to it, that he’ll always be a failure.  Sammy has told the whole world that the bully can fly.  When asked why he did this, Sammy simply says, “I don’t know.” It’s a refreshingly honest moment and contains a rare note of ambiguity in this otherwise crowd-pleasing film.

By the same token, holding the camera also allows him to observe reality and to discover truths that are seemingly imperceptible to the naked eye.  In one scene, Sammy records Burt carrying Mitzi across the threshold of their new home in Northern California. It’s a lovely, touching moment, but Sammy’s camera catches the doubt, the pain in Mitzi’s eyes.

Moments like these resonated with me throughout the film, as Spielberg’s love of his craft is apparent.  The wide-eyed wonder at the magic of cinema, combined with the coming-of-age tale, reminded me distinctly of Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. Though where that film was squarely aimed at children, Spielberg’s movie is meant to be embraced by audiences of all ages.

Overall it’s a movie that’s meant to leave you warm and fuzzy after the credits roll, and likely will. Spielberg’s affection for this tale is apparent, and it’s all done so intimately and passionately that you’ll find yourself transported.  (The impeccable production design and costuming also do some heavy lifting.) It’s hard to shake the feeling though that this is a tale of acute privilege, one that feels vaguely tone-deaf in today’s world.  Aside from the family drama, Sammy’s journey is not one of strife and sacrifice.  He never runs into any issues acquiring film equipment, instead relying on his own allowance or his family to buy and rent it for him.  In one scene, his girlfriend simply offers up her father’s expensive Arriflex camera for him to use.  And then a year after he graduates high school, he snags a gig on “Hogan’s Heroes” and gets to meet one of his idols, John Ford (in a hilarious cameo by David Lynch, still as Lynchian as ever).  Granted, this is meant to be semi-fictionalized, but some of it is true—Spielberg has specifically called out that John Ford meeting as being 100% accurate.

It bears repeating that there’s little struggle in Sammy’s story, and one can’t help but feel that things were simply handed to him.  There’s no scene in which his equipment gets damaged or stolen, or he can’t afford to buy a camera, or he simply suffers some personal tragedy that genuinely derails his plans.  For a long stretch of the movie, he does stop making films, but it’s entirely of his own volition, and he resumes it as easily as he’d stopped.

Spielberg is too gifted a storyteller to be actively condescending, or to denigrate others (Green Book this ain’t), but it’s noticeable that we don’t see anyone else’s perspectives—other minorities or people who are otherwise consistently ‘othered’ in our society.  To Spielberg’s credit, Sammy’s religion is an integral part of the character, and some of the movie’s best scenes are those that emphasize his Jewish heritage, such as when Uncle Boris teaches him to sit shiva.  And some of the most potent drama comes from the genuinely disturbing anti-Semitism that Sammy encounters at school.  But even with that perspective included, this still feels like an out-of-touch story of an affluent kid who is handed everything.  Sammy isn’t explicitly portrayed as being privileged per se. Rather, he’s an embodiment of American ideals, the notion that with hard work and know-how, you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps and accomplish anything.  This was true for him and for other baby boomers, but has become increasingly unlikely in today’s world as the social disparities have only gotten greater. As such, The Fabelmans comes off as an unintended critique of the American dream, at least to this millennial viewer.