The Fabelmans (Spielberg, 2022)
It’s roughly a year since Spielberg’s The Fabelmans his local screens and eleven months since I gave a it a glowing review for At the Movies:
In The Fabelmans, a kid growing up in post-war Arizona discovers a talent for making films with his Eagle Scout chums. His mother, a talented pianist, encourages him. His father, an engineer in the new-fangled world of computers, calls it a hobby and would rather he dedicated his life to building real things that people can use.
If you have a passing acquaintance with the biography of the iconic film director Steven Spielberg, and the two-part documentary about his life that came out in 2017 and which is still available on the Neon streaming service, you will know that this premise makes The Fabelmans the closest thing to pure autobiography that Mr Spielberg has ever come up with.
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No matter how personal the story is for Spielberg, it isn’t all that novel for the rest of us. The secret weapon here is the screenwriter Tony Kushner, the writer of Spielberg’s better late period films including Munich, Lincoln and the wonderful version of West Side Story from Christmas 2021.
Kushner, better known as a playwright before coming into Mr Spielberg’s orbit – he wrote the masterpiece Angels in America – seems to bring out the best in Spielberg and it’s notable that this story that might have become maudlin if it had been left in Spielberg’s hands alone – too respectful, perhaps – has more laughs than anything I’ve seen of his in a while.
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Some might see The Fabelmans as a Spielberg victory lap – if it is it’s a jog, not a sprint – but the love he shows for his parents and his gratitude for their love for him? Well, we could all do with a little bit more of that in our lives.
And it finishes with an absolute cracker of a closing shot – a laugh at his own expense, I think, but also a declaration. Don’t be boring. And, while it can be a little meandering at times, it’s never boring.
You can hear the whole review at RNZ.
Where to find The Fabelmans
Aotearoa: Streaming on Neon (also for the time being a 99c rental at Apple)
Australia: Streaming on Prime Video and Binge
USA: Streaming on Fubo, Showtime and DirectTV
UK: Streaming on Sky
Further reading
Over at RNZ, I surveyed all the local streaming sites looking for classic (i.e. pre-2000) television. Pickings were slim but I found some decent suggestions.
