Steven Spielberg seems to have started a resurgence where he’s started making these passion projects, like West Side Story, a film that he loved remaking and putting his own spin on a much loved classic of the industry. Now he’s gone onto this, The Fabelmans, a film about his own family, about his childhood and how he got to loving cinema and making films.
The Fabelmans follows young Sam Fabelman as he learns about filmmaking as he grows up, dealing with their family life of moving across the country, grief and secrets as well as finding out how films can help deal with those problems.
This film is made for the Oscars. A film about how powerful and impactful, films and cinema can be and the effects it can have on people. It in that way feels perfect for me. The film very much reflects how I feel about film and cinema, and I feel that impact and feeling that the art form can have. I’m glad that a film like this can reach people, and hope that audiences are able to think about film in the same sort of way.
The performances are such a big standout of this film, it must have an incredible difficult and feel like a lot of pressure to be portraying the family of a director, or maybe it’s easier because he knows exactly what he wants, I suppose it depends on the actor. Michelle Williams is the one everyone is talking about and deservedly so. She fully deserves the nomination, you end up losing her in this role and don’t see Michelle Williams at all. The one I don’t understand is how on earth Paul Dano was robbed of a nomination as Burt Fabelman, especially compared to Judd Hirsch, who yes is good in this film but Dano is incredible throughout the entire film, as he is in every film to be fair.
The only reason I didn’t score this film higher is just a couple of scenes that dragged abit for me, and almost felt like I was watching the scenes that they will show as clips during the award ceremony. It feels like the film really slows down for these couple of scenes, and I was wanting it to move onto the next scene. It just fully feels like the film stops so that an actor can have a monologue.
Spielberg is an incredible director, perhaps the biggest director and most known there will ever be. You can see his love and care for this project. It really feels like a love letter to his family and the industry, something that he can leave behind that up and coming filmmakers, that they can learn from, as well as reminding audiences of the power cinema has. I think this is his strongest directing I’ve seen from Spielberg in a long time. I’m very glad and excited we have this Spielberg rather than the one who made Ready Player One and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull. I’m excited for his next project.
Overall, The Fabelmans is a passion project for Steven Spielberg, a true, powerful, emotional story about the impact film can have on people’s lives on how they can affect our moods and a story of family. It’s very deserving of the Oscar buzz this film has even if it’s likely to miss out on to Everything Everywhere All at Once in the end, but this film is a must watch for film fans, and anyone that has a friend or family member who has an obsession with film.
What did you think of The Fabelmans?
As I said at the end of Plane review, it’s a busy month for films, I’m hoping to watch Knock at the Cabin and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish over the coming days and will do my best to get reviews for those out. Be sure to follow via the buttons below to not miss those reviews and more, as well as the latest film news.
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