Culture Crash: A Review of “The Fabelmans”

In the opening moments of The Fabelmans, little Sammy Fabelman, who is the fictional stand-in for co-writer and director Steven Spielberg, goes to see The Greatest Show on Earth in theaters with his parents. He is mesmerized by the experience – it thrills and terrifies him, and he pretty shortly begins making little movies of his own.

Of course we the audience knows he’ll never stop making those movies, that young Sammy is the autobiographical stand-in for one of the most successful creatives of the 20th and 21st centuries. But the character, of course, doesn’t know that. He’s just trying to get by.

Lately there has been an influx of directors writing personal films based on their own lives, so I was hesitant going in to see The Fabelmans… but I didn’t need to be concerned. Teaming up with playwright and frequent Spielberg collaboratory Tony Kushner, Spielberg mines his own personal story for his version of Lady Bird, a fun high school-set coming-of-age story with a lot to say about growing up. Simultaneously, though, Spielberg and Kushner tell the story of Spielberg’s parents and their complicated relationship through the years. This portion of the movie feels more like Death of a Salesman or some other American classic of the stage. In combining these two efforts – his own coming of age and American success story as well as the tale of a broken marriage and the white-picket fence American dream falling apart, Spielberg gives audiences yet another cinematic feast in a career full of them.

I walked into The Fabelmans unsure if it would be a ride worth going on. I doubted Steven Spielberg. But in actually watching the film, I remembered that there are some creatives you should always give the benefit of the doubt, and Spielberg is certainly one of them. The Fabelmans is great.