The Fabelmans (2022)
This was a positive surprise because I feared it will be yet another self indulgent movie about “the magic of movies”, but even though it has the usual Spielberg trappings he made it work really well. The coming of age or origin story of this moviemaker is used to convey a very personal story about family relationships and basically figuring out the world around you.
Cinema Paradiso successfully explored the love for watching movies and Babylon was less successful in my opinion in capturing the crazyness of the industry, I think Spielberg here is pretty successful in telling his story of the passion of making movies. While there are some great “behind the scenes”-type scenes, everything is grounded in Sammy’s personal story and his increasingly conflicting relationship with his family. We see how his fathers engineering side influence his fascination with the technical and craftsmanship of making movies, combined with his mothers more spiritual touch giving him a sense of capturing the real people with the camera. Which is beautifully told with both the camping trip film he makes and how the high school film challenges the self understanding of his high school nemesis. Not surprisingly, those are the characteristics we know Spielberg for from his movies. He has a true passion for telling personal stories, but also a great touch for technical craftsmanship of making something look convincing and exciting on camera.
Rating: 3.5