Steven Spielberg Effectively Showcases His Formative Years

Inspired by the childhood of the Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg, there was no better film in my mind than The Fabelmans for the long-awaited return of a personal annual event: a movie on Christmas Eve. Happily, I was correct in my assumption, but there is a question looming in my mind. Is The Fabelmans the coming-of-age story of a young boy who aspires to make movies, or is it more of the tale of a creatively stifled middle-aged woman struggling with her love for another man, who happens to be the best friend of her husband?

I’m not sure.

Set initially in New Jersey in 1952, we meet the Fabelmans, a middle-class Jewish family, as they are about to take their eight-year-old son Sammy (Mateo Zorvon Francis-DeFord in early scenes, and Gabriel LaBelle as a teenager) to the movies for the first time. The patriarch, Burt (Paul Dano), is a likable, albeit somewhat selfish, scientist who works for various tech companies and enjoys shooting home movies as a hobby. His free-spirited wife Mitzi (Michelle Williams) is a former concert pianist who becomes a homemaker and piano teacher. And Sammy, who fears the experience, is immediately mesmerized by a spectacular train crash in Cecil B DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. He asks for a train set for Hanukkah and proceeds to make his own trains crash.

Hence, the seeds are now planted for Sammy’s lifelong obsession, and eventual mega-success, as a filmmaker. But for any fans (like myself) hoping to see Sammy’s eventual progression behind the scenes in Hollywood, The Fabelmans avoids that path.

Two Fabelman daughters – Reggie (Julia Butters) and Natalie (Keeley Karsten) — and a close family friend, the seemingly happy-go-lucky Benny Loewy (Seth Rogen), round off the primary cast in The Fabelmans. A third daughter, Lisa (Sophia Kopera), joins the family at a later time.

From the onset, life seems happy and carefree for the Fabelmans in their tight-knit Jewish community. But this is a colossal secret looming – Mitzi and Benny. The moment Mitzi mentions that the family cannot move to Arizona (for the sake of Burt’s career) without taking him, we realize there is more that initially meets the eye in their relationship. Eventually, while making one of his amateur films, Sammy discovers the truth.

As Sammy grows up, the story drifts away from Mitzi’s tsuris (a Yiddish term for aggravating trouble and fitting, no doubt, in the review of this movie) and more towards being a Jewish boy in a new high school and experiencing anti-Semitism. We root for Sammy, who as the underdog does find his path. But at the core is Williams’ Mitzi as she struggles to find happiness without the man she truly loves. Eventually, her passion comes first, destroying a couple – and a family initially – who still love each other but can’t live together.

While highly lauded for her performance (including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture; one of the five nods for The Fabelmans), Williams is not necessarily entirely convincing as a Jewish woman from New Jersey living in the 1950s. I base this on my own personal experience of the faith, who can personally vouch for the authenticity of Robin Bartlett as Tina Schildkraut, Mitzi’s mother, and Jeannie Berlin as Haddash Fabelman, Burt’s mother. And, by underusing Seth Rogen as Benny, we never do see his emotional struggle, if any, save the one scene where he pleads with Sammy not to give up filmmaking.

As always, the attention to detail Spielberg is known for, particularly in a period piece, is flawless. There is no cute extra-terrestrial, shark, UFO, or the horrors of war to drive the plot, which demonstrates Spielberg’s ability to also tell tales of a more simplistic nature. We witness the seeds of young Sammy as the prototype for Spielberg in the blockbuster storytelling he will eventually tell. And there are two standout cameos in The Fabelmans: Judd Hirsch as the profane uncle who was a lion tamer in a circus, and David Lynch as the famed director John Ford at the end of the film.

Maybe one day Steven Spielberg will make a movie documenting his career trail film by film. But for now The Fabelmans was the absolute right choice for the return of my aforementioned annual tradition: a movie on Christmas Eve. The challenge will be finding a film to top this next year.