the fabelmans (steven spielberg, 2022)

I am a big fan of Steven Spielberg. The last time I made a list of the best directors of all time, I had Spielberg at #3. Even with a Spielberg movie that I thought fell short, like West Side Story, "it's nice to watch a popular entertainment from a director who knows what they are doing." (My problem with that movie was more about the fact that I don't think it's based on a great play.)

If anyone has earned the right to make a fictionalized movie about his life as a budding film maker, it's Spielberg. I'm glad he is at the point where a movie like The Fabelmans is welcomed by studios, audiences, and award shows. I don't begrudge him this moment. But as I watched all 2 1/2 hours of The Fabelmans, I kept asking myself, why am I supposed to care about Steven Spielberg's childhood? And I never felt that question was answered.

Spielberg has made some of our greatest movies about growing up in suburban America (Close Encounters and E.T. being the most obvious examples), and he is not limited to that subject matter ... he has made great action movies and great historical dramas and great based-on-Philip-K.-Dick movies, and plenty of popular entertainments. Perhaps what is lacking from The Fabelmans is distance. The subject matter is clearly of great importance to Spielberg, understandably so. But I find his work more appealing when he translates his experiences into a larger picture.

The casting is variable. Gabriel LaBelle is a wonderful stand-in for the teenaged Spielberg. But Michelle Williams, one of our finest actors, is not quite believable as a Jewish mother with artistic tendencies. (Of course, she'll probably get her fifth Oscar nomination.) Williams can be a straightforward actor ... she can also transform herself believably, as when she made herself into Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn. But, especially when Spielberg offers so many traditional (some would say stereotypical) Jewish characters, Williams stands out in the wrong kind of way. On the other hand, the casting of David Lynch in a cameo as John Ford is inspired.

If it came from anyone else, I'd think The Fabelmans was too long and not think of it again. But it's hard to avoid feeling disappointed when a Spielberg movie misses its mark.