'The Fabelmans' Movie Review: Fab

The FabelmansDirector Steven SpielbergActors Gabriel LaBelle Michelle WilliamsRating 45The Fabelmans is a family film mdash or at any rate about a family named the Fabelmans But it is essentially film history The life of few filmmakers barring Steven Spielberg mdash with such astounding continuing impact on both cinema as personal art and collective mania mdash is likely to elicit a response thatrsquos nothing short of How did he happen He is a walking talking living movie history isnrsquot heSo yes this is a memoir alright Delightfully wrapped inside a lsquoSpielberg moviersquo And I donrsquot mean this in a way of how all art is autobiographicalHere Spielberg 77 at the evening of his career mdash though itrsquos impossible that the indefatigable director will ever walk into the sunset mdash looks back at his life with such warmth candour and humour that it could not have been easy to seamlessly translate on screenAs Irsquove come to realise more often than not the actual hero behind stories of all the supposed greatsgiants is usually the parents or at least one of them Spielberg behind the camera looking at himself as superyoung Sam Gabriel LaBelle mostly shines the spotlight on his beautifully bohemian mother Michelle Williams seemingly stuck in a sorted but joyless marriageOr actually thatrsquos not what it is Shersquos who she is Itrsquos equally impossible for children to judge parents whorsquove given them so much love and care besides life itself Spielberg cowriting with Tony Kushner basically offers his childhood story of the separation of his mom and dad for no fault of either as is mdash sans commentYet like wersquore all lead characters of our own lives the story of the Fabelmans is entirely the perspective of Sam the eldest son The film opens with the screening of The Greatest Show on Earth 1952 that the Fabelmans take their child to Thatrsquos the boyrsquos first time in a cinemaHersquos obviously struck And while thatrsquod be true for all our first visits to a theatre and the magic that followed turning us into film buffs forever mdash the penny that dropped for lirsquol Sam was how he could recreate what he saw at homeHis mother more artistically inclined could spot her boyrsquos interest plus genius His gentle father Paul Dano was an engineering guru of sorts and may have preferred a similar professional direction for his childUp until this point isnrsquot it amazing how similar the worldrsquos greatest directorrsquos memoir resonates with any other desirsquos Indeed the Fabelmans as the mother puts it are split between an interest in science and the arts Itrsquos the oldest dilemma of Indiarsquos education system too where children get demarcated into three separate streamsStill nothing merges arts commerce and science as cinema does In Sam you can trust that he will deep dive into practicing and understanding movie craft Once that is adequately mastered expression storytelling worldview can more easily followHow else does one explain a director with the wand to blow up the big screen with scifi ET thriller Jaws adventure Indiana Jones war Saving Private Ryan pulling off The Post on journalism for a quickie on a break or casually slipping in say Schindlerrsquos List on the holocaust while still working on Jurassic ParkThe latter movie by the way seriously cracked open Indian market for Hollywood making Spielberg our local mainstream Another reason his early life interests us Besides the inherently emotional qualitydraw of the film itselfAs Spielberg tells director SS Rajamouli in an interview on The Fabelmans he felt naked shooting it mdash often stepping out of the set to cry alone Itrsquos bizarre how as a rich smart boy in sunny California he had to face antiSemitic jabsjibes on campusLooks like no matter where you go humans are simply determined to segregate and discriminate Itrsquos just HinduMuslim somewhere else upperlower caste elsewhere still The natural crap never stops The world is what it isBeyond laudable how Spielberg used tools of cinema to show us as he saw it but more than thrilled us to bits over decades That he was similarly entertaining his family friends and classmates with his camera ever since a child isnrsquot what makes The Fabelmans specialIt does make it a little different from other fictionalised autobiographical movies of filmmakers say Fellinirsquos 8 12 Tornatorersquos Cinema Paradiso Crowersquos Almost Famous Cuaronrsquos RomahellipThe storytelling sense I got from those fantastic films was along the lines of something that begins with ldquoOnce upon a timehelliprdquoBrilliantly enacted anecdotally funny The Fabelmans has the feel of something that goes And you know this one time Uncle Boris Judd Hirsch from the circus came over to leave behind a precious lifelessonmdashthat itrsquos brave to stick your neck inside a lionrsquos mouth but art to figure how to get out of it And that art often is at friction with familyOh must tell you about a moment when this famous director John Ford played by David Lynch showed up and saidhellip The rest is history Through a film I could so repeat