The Fabelmans Parent Guide

Burt (Paul Dano) and his wife, Mitzi Fabelman (Michelle Williams), are unsure how their young son Sammy (Mateo Zoryon Francis-Deford) is going to react to his first motion picture – Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth. That is, until they find him in the basement recreating the climactic trainwreck from the film with the model train set he got for Hanukkah. From then on, Sammy is determined to make movies. Whether it is a Western made with his friends for a Boy Scout merit badge, or the editing work done on family movies, Sammy never steps away from the camera for long.

As life goes on, Sammy (played as a teenager by Gabrielle LaBelle) finds that things are more complicated than film speed, cuts, splices, or soundtracks. His family life changes when his dad takes jobs in Arizona and then California, and Sammy needs to start living in the real world. If he allows it, his passion for filmmaking could be all-consuming. The trick for Sammy is making time for his family.

Part nostalgia trip, part autobiography, Steven Spielberg’s latest film overflows with his love of film and his family – despite an increasingly complex relationship with the latter. Sammy’s obsession with making movies is so catching. I get it: I managed to con people into paying me real money to watch movies for work. I really relate to Sammy’s passion for the craft – I just lack the ability. So instead, I sit here and pick apart other people’s work. But it’s closer than I expected to get.

Put diplomatically, the film runs about half an hour longer than it should. I appreciate that it’s hard to lower the axe on a personal project like this, but two-and-a-half hours is just too much. Apart from the runtime, there are some adult themes and a bit more cussing than is appropriate for kids. Teens, on the other hand, especially those with a passion for film, will probably have a wonderful time with the movie. Provided, of course, they have an attention span that can stretch for the better part of three hours.

Spielberg’s movies were so influential to my early experience with film and to moviegoers for over five decades. How could you possibly compete with a filmography that includes E.T., Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Jaws? His films are an incredible part of our cultural cinematic lexicon, and are part of the reason I love the medium so much. With a record like that, I guess I can get off his back if he wants to make his most personal movie a bit too long. Maybe. For a minute.