The Fabelmans - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

THINK you know Steven Spielberg? Then wait until you've seen The Fabelmans, a look behind the formative years of the master movie maker.

While not quite a biopic in the traditional mode, this incorporates a lot of what helped to shape Spielberg as the cinematic legend he has become, from his early love of cinema and making films, through to his challenging relationship with his family.

As such, it is arguably Spielberg's most personal film to date, a bittersweet coming-of-age that serves as both a sensitive examination of family, mental health and sacrifice, as well as an ode to the magic of cinema.

Spielberg himself is recreated in Sammy Fabelman, a shy kid in 1950s New Jersey, whose passion for the big screen is ignited from the moment he is taken to see Cecil B DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth - the train crash providing to be a formative moment in his life, that he seeks to recreate as a first step towards movie-making.

But while everything in Sammy's life seems to be idyllic, from devoted dad Burt (Paul Dano) to supportive, albeit eccentric mum Mitzi (Michelle Williams), and family best friend 'Uncle' Bennie (Seth Rogen), the secrets that everyone is trying to keep - from illicit feelings to suppressed mental health issues - eventually unravel.

By the time a late teen Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) reaches California and actively pursues his dreams (whether in filmmaking or with women), some challenging home truths have been revealed and big decisions await.

Spielberg's film is wonderfully diverse in the emotions it stirs, flitting from magical and inspirational one minute, to hard-hitting and emotionally involving the next.

There is so much going on... with Williams' Mitzi often at the centre of it. A mid-film camping trip that culminates in Mitzi impulsively dancing in her transparent nightie in the headlights of their car brilliantly captures the tussles and differing viewpoints at the heart of the movie, from the wonder of the men watching on and admiring (with their feelings of love), to the dangerous spontaneity of Mitzi herself, through to the embarrassment of her children.

The camping trip is revisited a few scenes later as Sammy tries to put together a home movie, that unwittingly exposes the true depths of Mitzi's feelings for Uncle Bennie - a revelation that proves devastating for Sammy and threatens his own burgeoning confidence.

The complex emotions underpinning this complex love triangle are beautifully played by Williams, Dano and Rogen - with the latter effectively restrained in a role that both plays to his comedic charisma and something much deeper.

Williams, meanwhile, is a whirlwind of suppressed emotion and depressive inclination - a mother at odds with herself half the time, who always tries to do her best but - with the passage of time - cannot keep her true feelings at bay.

It is this family dynamic that lends the film such a bittersweet vibe - although Spielberg himself doesn't seek to paint anyone as villains, more allowing things to play out as some form of on-screen therapy - a way of understanding and depicting the intricacies and fallibility of the human condition.

Elsewhere, however, he sprinkles the old cinematic magic dust that has become his own particular trademark, offering some genuinely fun glimpses into the filmmaking process as Sammy sets about making a name for himself by creating his own Westerns and war films, influenced by the films he has seen on the big screen.

Given the real-life outcome, and what Sammy (or Steven) became, then it's hard not to see The Fabelmans as an ultimately optimistic experience - a film that acknowledges life's complexity but which still extols the virtues of pursuing your dreams, if only to find out where they may lead you.