Film Pick of the Week: The Fabelmans - review by Yvette Huddleston
Steven Spielberg’s most personal movie yet is a semi-autobiographical coming of age drama loosely based on his own childhood and adolescence and his formative years as a filmmaker.
The Fabelmans are electrical engineer dad Burt (Paul Dano), free-spirited mom Mitzi (Michelle Williams), teenage son Sammy (Gabriel LaBelle) and his three younger sisters. The family often have to move around because of Burt’s work, something which Mitzi finds difficult. She is warm, creative and imaginative – she makes life an adventure for her children, but her mental health is fragile and the marriage under strain. Relocating from New Jersey, the Fabelmans settle briefly in Arizona and then California, where young Sammy is subjected to antisemitic bullying at high school and has to navigate his way through that. At the same time, he is becoming aware that lovely family friend ‘uncle’ Benny (a nice understated performance from Seth Rogen), who is often around, is perhaps more than just a friend to Mitzi. The script addresses, without sentimentality or emotional manipulation, the painful legacy of separation and divorce – and especially the effect it has on the children.