The Fabelmans

Gabriel LaBelle in The Fabelmans

Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans is a teeming Whitman sampler of a movie. His most personal film, how could it not be, it contains both the best and worst of the auteur. The film is a shadow play of memories, just like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance which the teenaged Spielberg and his pals watch. In this respect, the film is unassailable. How can we begrudge the man his memories. Production values are outstanding and the cast is generally good, though Seth Rogan's performance once again displays Spielberg's lack of feel for comedy.

I generally enjoyed the film, but I think it shows Spielberg's limitations. As in nearly all of his films, ambiguity and subtlety are not to be found. Mom (Michelle Williams) is the artistic half of the Spielberg equation while Dad (Paul Dano) bequeaths his love of technological gadgetry to his son and never the twain shall meet. There is a sense of inflation in the film which suffers from overstatement and over explication. Mom doesn't play a gorgeous classical tune on the piano once, she does it thrice so that there is no chance that we won't grasp that she is an artistic soul straightjacketed by assuming the role of a suburban housewife.

Furthermore, Spielberg and frequent collaborator Tony Kushner over stuff the film with incidents that cause it to be overlong and, at times, ponderous. A tornado, a pet monkey, Judd Hirsch, Michelle Williams dancing by the campfire, a marijuana sequence that seems premature historically: there is too much going on and it makes it seems like the project was so personal that no one was suggesting the necessary cuts.

Still, I am too much of a movie buff to not appreciate Spielberg showing how the dream factory of Hollywood shaped his consciousness and branded itself upon his brain. The sequences showing showing the impact of The Greatest Show on Earth on the young tyro testify to the sense of childlike wonder that is Spielberg's stock in trade. David Lynch's salty cameo as John Ford is the kind of piss and vinegar coda the film begged for, preventing it from becoming the overlong campfire marshmallow Spielberg often produces.