The Fabelmans – Steven Spielberg (Amblin-Universal) – Route 66

Recurring in recent times, Spielberg joins the fashion of reviewing the stage of childhood / adolescence / early youth by established directors: Rome (Alfonso Cuaron), Belfast (Kenneth Branagh) Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) It was the hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino) Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson) Apollo 10 ½: A Space Childhood (Richard Linklater)…

The main difference is that Spielberg is older than the rest and this film can well be understood as his cinematographic testament, even if he shoots another one later, once he reaches the age and experience necessary to look back. Except for the name change of the main protagonist, here Sammy Fabelman, everything that can be seen in his film autobiography happens as it happened and he remembers it.

His love song to the cinema is clear from the beginning, when he began filming as a child, backed at all times by his mother, and that here goes up to the moment when a studio decides to hire him to direct its first television episodes. He also exposes his love for his family, revealing the family secret that erupted within him and led to his subsequent trauma-plagued move to California from Arizona.

Always with his innate gift for storytelling and to captivate any spectator from the beginning, making it clear that he understood the magician’s tricks of the cinema from his adolescence, it has a splendid Michelle Williams playing her mother and relates with conviction the need for some people to dedicate themselves to art, whatever the cost. And David Lynch’s intervention as John Ford putting the climax with his advice, only ratifies it.

Xavier Valino