The first great film of the year, THE FABELMANS is Steven Spielberg at the top of his game.
“Most of my movies have been a reflection of things that happened to me in my formative years. Everything that a filmmaker puts him or herself into, even if it’s somebody else’s script, your life is going to come spilling out onto celluloid, whether you like it or not. It just happens. But with The Fabelmans, it wasn’t about the metaphor; it was about the memory.”
THE FABELMANS is Steven Spielberg’s latest film, and may, arguably, be his greatest, the best since Bridge of Spies, and it’s been brewing and percolating for years.
Unquestionably a portrait of Spielberg, the artist, as a young man, and an attempt to thoughtfully memorialise his parents, with gratitude for their virtues and forgiveness for their frailties, THE FABELMANS also fine tunes the complex awareness of how pictures can entertain and illuminate, expose and manipulate, mythologise and demonise. The boy who filmed train crashes, alien encounters, westerns and war narratives for his amusement comes of age learning that image-making can shatter people, too.
New Jersey Jews trying to assimilate in Arizona, as likely as a toucan changing its plumage in Tucson, sees fissures forming in already fractured family. Mum and dad are loving and devoted parents but mother Mitzi is a frustrated free spirit, a musician whose career has been curtailed by traditional family obligation. The character is another memorable performance from Michelle Williams.
Another character of note is Mitzi Fabelman’s mysterious Uncle Boris. Played with riveting intensity by Judd Hirsch, Boris is the rarely mentioned black sheep relative who literally ran away with the circus and became a lion tamer, then found a career in movies beginning in the silent film era. He warns the Spielberg avatar, Sammy, that the way of the artist is an irresistible calling, but it will also cost him in other areas of life.
There’s also a surprise cameo by David Lynch riffing on John Ford, a film finale bon bon that’s icing on an already delicious cinematic cake.
For those fearful that film fare has been enfeebled by infantilism, THE FABELMANS gives a positive prognosis of picture making emerging from paralysis. It’s one of those films where commercialism rides art’s coattails effortlessly, a satisfying slide, an entertaining ride.
Full of energy, charm, dramatic and comedic attack, and brilliance of timing, the wit is elfin rather than elephantine, sentimentality usurped by sincerity, condescension banished by compassion.
If you love family and you love film, you shall not soon forget your stay with THE FABELMANS. In fact, you’ll probably want to revisit, real soon.
