Directing: A-
Acting: A
Writing: A-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

There is a metatextual element to The Fabelmans that goes much deeper than the surface, something consistently more subtle than its more obvious parts—although the obvious parts can be pretty fun. As in, when young Sammy Fabelman makes a promise not to betray a schoolmate’s secret, “Unless I make a movie about it.” This line gets a big laugh because we are watching the very movie he’s talking about, and in lesser hands, this would be unbearable hokum. Not in the hands of Steven Spielberg, who here might just have made his crowning achievement.

I would never argue that The Fabelmans is Spielberg’s best film. I would, however, argue that it’s his best in twenty years, and a truly great late-career film, on par with Scorsese’s The Irishman. This is merely a matter of taste, but as someone with more of a penchant for warmth than for depth, between the two films, I prefer this one. Besides, whereas The Irishman deals with looking at your past with longing and regret, The Fabelmans, quite openly Spielberg’s most personal film, is much more concerned with love, forgiveness, and most of all, passion.

The passion part is what makes this movie work, in spite of some opening scenes that feel slightly forced and contrived. I am convinced, however, that not even those elements are an accident, and this film takes its time in deliberately winning over the viewer. There is no question that The Fabelmans is largely revisionist even as it is deeply autobiographical (written by Spielberg himself—his first feature film writing credit since 2001’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence—and cowritten by Tony Kushner), and that is is absolutely designed to be emotionally manipulative.

But that is precisely the point. Sammy Fabelman, the film’s clear stand-in for Steven Spielberg himself as a child, grows up learning not just how to make movies, but how to shoot and edit them in ways that elicit a desired emotion from his audience. This movie itself is doing exactly what we are seeing Sammy learn how to do. A lot of this film has a visual quality that lies in the space between “dreamlike” and what can only be described as “Spielbergian,” and as such perfectly illustrates the experience of wistfulness and nostalgia.

Even the things that are quite on the nose must be very deliberate, as in the name of this family, “Fabelman.” Sammy is depicted by two impossibly beautiful, wide-eyed young boy actors, first as a child by Mateo Zoryan, and then as a teenager by Gabriel LaBelle, and both are excellent, but they also represent a longstanding tradition of casting actors who are far better looking than their real-life counterparts.

In the meantime, after literally decades of commentary on how Spielberg’s parents’ divorce has informed his art, Sammy’s parents are played by Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, with Seth Rogen as the mom’s slow-burn alternate love interest, also the dad’s best friend. All three of these actors here are playing characters unlike any other they have ever played; Dano in particular is an interesting choice, as he so often plays unsettling characters. Not so here: he’s just a nice-guy dad and husband, very busy with work but otherwise understanding to a fault, unable to stop loving a wife who still loves him, but loves someone else more. This may be the most straightforward role I have ever seen Seth Rogen play, and with very little physical alteration aside from a close-cropped haircut and a pair of glasses, he nearly disappears in the part.

Michelle Williams is the standout, though, as a woman desperately trying to be happy in a situation that on paper should not be miserable, but there are emotions just under the surface that are beyond her control. Especially as the film goes on, it seems inevitable she will be an Oscar contender.

It must also be noted, however, that Gabriel Labelle carries the movie incredibly well, from the moment he appears onscreen as the teenage Sammy, until the ending sequence, in which he meets a famous film director in Hollywood, which takes a turn that is quite literally Lynchian. And still, somehow, Spielberg maintains a consistency of tone that has long been one of his many cinematic touchstones.

So often I comment on a film’s run time, and The Fabelmans, it should be noted, is 2 hours and 31 minutes long. And yet, here is the mark of a great filmmaker: it does not feel that long at all. I was fully absorbed by this movie from start to finish, even as I found myself able to contemplate Spielberg’s choices. Judd Hirsch shows up as Sammy’s great uncle, and is not in the film for long, and yet even his performance is impossible to forget. Unlike, say, countless superhero movies of this length, nothing here feels like it could have, or should have, been cut.

At age 75, clearly Spielberg is a lot closer to the end of his career than to its beginning. He no doubt has several movies left in him, but one can easily understand why he might have wanted to get this one done well before anything might force him to slow down. Nearly thirty years ago, he won his first Best Picture Oscar for Schindler’s List, which was clearly deeply personal to him as a Jewish man. This film, on the other hand, is deeply personal to him as a family man, as someone with a kind of all-encompassing empathy rarely found. You can feel the love he has for his parents, even as he dramatizes some of their less flattering behaviors toward each other. Even more keenly, you can feel the passion he had, and has, for filmmaking—and the respect his parents developed for that passion.

You get the sense that The Fabelmans is a bit of an idealized version of the Spielberg story, here rendered as the Fabelman story, but this movie’s very existence proves how he wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t either.

*There is always more to the story, but the Spielberg version is a treat.*

Overal: A-