The Fabelmans sat in a very interesting spot for me when I first heard about it’s release. I was both extremely excited about a film from Steven Spielberg all about cinema and the love of film and filmmaking, however I hadn’t heard enough hype around it to be ready to see it on day one. As such, I was a little bit late to the party on this one. However, now that I have finally gotten around to it, I have to say I am glad I took the time to watch, even at an extremely bloated 2 hour and 30 minute runtime.
The Fabelmans follows the life of the Fabelman family- especially son Sammy Fabelman- a jewish family living in middle class America in the 1960s. Sammy Fabelman, from a young age, develops a love for early cinema, and that becomes a huge part of his life growing up. That’s really all this movie is about. It’s an extremely simple premise that really, I thought, didn’t have enough meat going in to really sell its long runtime, yet I was pleasantly surprised at how well the movie kept chugging along without much of a plot direction. We get to see Sammy grow from a young child to a young adult and in that time it feels very much like a complete and well-told story all around.
I think this movie had a truly wonderful premise, however I felt the marketing really left something to be desired here, and in fact, I felt that the way The Fabelmans was presented prior to release, as this sort of “love letter to cinema”, really hurt the movie more than it helped. Is it inspired by film? Yes. Does it feel like Spielberg is saying thank you to the industry that gave him his wonderful career? Absolutely. Yet, at the same time, The Fabelmans is so much more than that. It really is a wonderfully crafted coming-of-age tale of a family living in America, and it’s told through the lens of a boy with a passion for film and cinema. There are absolutely parts of this film that do feel like that so-called “love letter”, yet I felt that putting the movie exclusively into that bucket hurt itself more than it helped.
On the flip side, the acting in the movie was absolutely phenomenal. I was blown away by how believable each and every performance was, and how much passion each actor played their role with. I thought Paul Dano and Michelle Williams were phenomenal as Sammy’s parents. Each was played with a different level of spirit and it felt so real. Gabriel LaBelle was fantastic as Sammy Fabelman, and being the true focus of the film, he needed to be great for this movie to work. I was even impressed with how well Seth Rogen was as Benny. He wasn’t out of place even a little bit, which is surprising when you consider how little serious roles Rogen has had in his successful career.
I also very much enjoyed how authentic each setting was, however I did feel that the California setting was the best of the film. The characters there were the best of the film, the plot was fantastic in this section, and the story, I felt, had the most meat on it through that section. It’s a shame that this only was part of the final third of the film. I believe, had they made the whole movie in that setting and with the premise that section of the film had, it could have been a perfect 5 out of 5 rating from me. I just felt the first third of the film had a little troubling finding itself, and the middle third was less interesting than that final third, which was an absolute masterpiece. It also seemed that up until the first hour mark, there really was nothing happening in the movie. Almost as if they were just showing us snippets of the life of this family. I understand that for world-building and getting us involved in the characters, that is important. Yet, I feel like the film needed less of that overall. You could have taken out 40 minutes of The Fabelmans runtime and still told the same, cohesive story.
Yet, even with these gripes, I still found myself coming back time and again and getting interested over and over to what the story had to say. Between the intriguing characters and the interesting plot, I just couldn’t step away. There was so much good in The Fabelmans that it really was able to shine through it’s duller sections. I was especially profoundly enamored over the filming and showing of all the various short films Sammy put together. It really just deepened my love for the filmmaking process and I felt Spielberg’s passion shine through in those moments. I just wish this film had been marketed as so much more than it was. The Fabelmans gave us a story of family, and one that wasn’t cookie-cutter plain and boring like so many other movies do. It gave us a story that felt real, grounded and perfect in its own imperfect way.
