Continuing the countdown of my favorite 2022 movies…

Best Films of 2022
#2 – The Fabelmans

I find it fascinating that Steven Spielberg — the most successful filmmaker in history, director of some of the most iconic movies of the last half-century — has released two of his best films in the past two years only to see them flop at the box office.

Is the pandemic to blame? Or are we so saturated in superhero culture that adult dramas can’t find an audience even when directed by the greatest of all time?

Last year’s West Side Story was a dazzling remake that bettered its classic source material in just about every way but it couldn’t crack $40 million at the domestic box office. The Fabelmans is as good if not better and it hasn’t made even half that much.

Steven Frickin’ Spielberg makes the most personal movie of his career and it grosses less than Father Stu? Come on!

Forgive me for fixating on box office but when we’re considering a man whose career has been defined by the fact that his movies strike a nerve for millions of people, it seems relevant that he no longer seems to be connecting.

That’s a shame, because The Fabelmans is an exhilarating work of memory and a testament to the transformational power of art. Following Spielberg stand-in Sammy Fabelman (newcomer Gabriel LaBelle) from his first time in a movie theater to his first time on a studio lot, the film details cinema’s importance in his life as both an escape and a means of shaping the world around him.

The movie’s central conflict centers around Sammy’s troubled family life, and particularly his mother Mitzi’s inability to find happiness as a wife and mother. Mitzi (Michelle Williams) is a concert pianist while Sammy’s father Burt (Paul Dano) is a computer engineer, and that clash of art and science serves as the origin story for Spielberg, a technically masterful director with a gift for pulling heartstrings.

Right out of the gate Sammy has a knack for visual storytelling, and some of The Fabelmans‘ best moments involve the making of his low-budget movies. The finished products always kill, whether the audience is his immediate family, a boy scout troop, or a gym full of high school students. The film never bothers to explore why he’s so talented because it’s more interested in what that calling means to the rest of his life.

In a key early scene, Sammy’s great uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch) comes to visit and diagnoses quickly that Sammy is a special talent who, deep down, cares more about his art than his family. It’s a sobering assessment, one Sammy rejects in the moment, but one Spielberg is eager to probe. Much later in the film, during a gut-wrenching family argument, Sammy sits in the background and imagines how he’d capture the moment on camera.

The meta quality of that scene is fascinating. Sixty years later, Spielberg actually is capturing his family’s trauma on camera, framing the action exactly how his fictional counterpart imagines he would.

Spielberg waited until late in his career to tell this story but he’s been telling versions of it for decades. His most famous movies are littered with broken families, and especially absentee fathers. Close Encounters of the Third Kind depicts a man choosing his obsession over his loved ones. When the fake gunshots in Sammy’s homemade Western don’t “look real,” he pokes the film with a pin to create a light burst effect. I couldn’t help but think about an adult Spielberg keeping the shark offscreen for most of Jaws for the same reason.

The Fabelmans is a poignant drama and an exciting coming-of-age film even if you’ve never seen a Spielberg movie, but for his biggest fans it’s also a sort of Rosetta Stone that illuminates and deepens everything that came before it.

I’m so glad Spielberg is creating at this level so late in his career. His work in this film is as vital and satisfying as that in any of his early masterworks. His camera placement and movement is impeccable, as is his command of pacing. This is a 2 1/2 hour movie that flies by, with every scene flowing naturally from the last. That’s a credit to both Spielberg’s direction and the script he penned alongside Tony Kushner.

The film wraps up with one of its best scenes, and ends on a hilarious grace note that took my breath away. I actually got a little teary-eyed watching the final moments on my second viewing. I think I was overwhelmed by the level of both craft and humanity on display by a filmmaker whose achievements will never be equalled in this art form I’ve spent my whole life learning to love.