It’s 1952 and eight-year-old Sammy Fabelman is heading to the big, dark movie theater with his parents. Cecil B Demille’s circus spectacle, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” is on the marquee. Sammy is mesmerized throughout the movie, but it’s the pile-up train crash done with miniatures that forever opens his eyes wide open. He asks for and receives a train set for Hanukkah and re-creates the train crash over and over. With an assist from Mom (Michelle Williams) he is allowed to use Dad’s (Paul Dano) 8mm movie camera. Now, he can watch the train crash repeatedly without destroying the new trains. Soon, he is filming his friends and family and telling stories through the lens. The Fabelmans is the story of Spielberg’s childhood through the eyes of Sammy. It’s a remarkable origin story for one of our greatest and most influential filmmakers.
Sammy quickly learns that film is more than pretty pictures and storytelling. He rounds up the neighborhood kids and figures out how to depict firing blanks from toy guns just like in a real western. At 13, he wins an Eagle Scout merit badge for directing his schoolmates in a 40-minute war movie. While reviewing the footage from a family camping trip he unveils a family secret which will turn his life upside down. Movies can provide escape but also spotlight painful reality. His high school years in northern California demonstrate how film has the power to win friends, mollify school bullies, attract girls, beautify, humiliate, and stretch the truth.
The cast is outstanding starting with Gabriel LaBelle as Sammy. (Mateo Zorgan is also excellent as the young Sammy.) Imagine being directed by Steven Spielberg while you’re portraying Steven Spielberg. Michelle Williams is once again looking at an Oscar nomination for Mitzi, the suppressed free spirit and could-have-been concert pianist. She is the heart of the film. Paul Dano is Burt, Mitzi’s polar opposite as the reserved straight-arrow focused on being the family’s steady breadwinner. Seth Rogen and Judd Hirsch bring a burst of energy to the rather restrained film.
We have all been touched by Spielberg’s movies. Whether it’s the epic blockbusters like Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., Indiana Jones, or Jurassic Park. Or the serious adult fare, The Color Purple, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Lincoln, or Munich. And the themes throughout his work: ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances, a childlike sense of wonder, goodness in humanity, and exploring the extraterrestrial. The Fabelmans sets the stage for all that and concludes by sending Sammy off to Hollywood at 16 years old. The final scene is another classic for the Spielberg annals. A cameo by an auteur portraying a legendary director. Never has lighting a cigar been filled with such anticipation.
(The Fabelmans is still running in some theaters and also available on demand.)
D² Rating ◼◼◼◩☐
Trivia: A 13-year-old Christian Bale made his film debut in what 1987 Spielberg film?
Answer: Empire of the Sun