Critics reviews

In two-and-a-half hours, a decade of Spielberg’s own life flies by. An autopsy of a marriage and a homage to invention, [The Fabelmans is] a bittersweet piece of joy.

Spielberg and his co-writer Tony Kushner... avoid the fundamental mistake that hobbles so many film biographies, which is to try to cram every single moment that people might've heard of elsewhere into two-plus hours, making it impossible to linger on any one thing... [Instead, they] refashion the director's life as a work of fiction.

[The Fabelmans] is a deeply personal narrative that isn’t wholly an autobiography, a greatest-hits replay of his career, or a cliché ode to moviemaking. It’s a vulnerable reach into his past, designed to heal a wound that seems to still be as tender as the day it opened decades ago, in spite of the bursts of comedy and the measured ruminations on display.

From an early age, Spielberg is telling us, he’s understood cinema’s power to entertain, immerse, inform and transport, and as a way to create a usable past. “The Fabelmans” does it all, with an expansive spirit and that quintessential Spielbergian combination of honesty and sentiment. It tells the truth, at a honeyed, ameliorating slant.

The Fabelmans defies easy categorization. Viewers expecting a stirring childhood memoir about the power of cinema may be surprised at how bittersweet and raw the story actually is. But that vulnerability is what makes the film a triumph.

Piercing, rollicking and altogether marvelous... [The Fabelmans] is [Spielberg's] most personal work... To use the [film's ]exquisite craftsmanship as an argument against it is to cheat yourself of its pleasure, and to miss the point of a movie that functions as a playful, prismatic meditation on its own making.

[The Fabelmans] brings full circle that commingling of [Spielberg's] life and his art in a way that celebrates both the medium to which he’s devoted himself and the experiences that inspired his creative endeavors.

Few filmmakers are as reliably excellent at creating worlds that are like life yet different, at times wildly so, and that can evoke the heart-skipping thrill of being tossed in the air by trusted arms... “The Fabelmans” is, as the title says, somewhat of a fable and wonderful in both large and small ways, even if Spielberg can’t help but soften the rougher, potentially lacerating edges.

The Fabelmans feels like something of a gift. So many people, for so many years, have grafted themselves onto Spielberg’s films, structured whole childhoods around them, held them as emblems of magic and majesty. And now, at long last, Spielberg politely shares something of himself, too: a reciprocal response to these decades of conversation that says, Here’s where it all came from, the last piece of the mosaic.

I’d say this playful yet nakedly personal coming-of-auteur epic was trying to split the difference between memoir and crowdpleaser, but it seems even more determined to reconcile the two: What else would Steven Spielberg’s ultimate divorce movie be about if not the hope for some kind of reconciliation?

[The Fabelmans] is not merely Portrait of Spielberg as a Young Man. This is also a warm, moving drama about the need to make art, whatever its cost... [It] is Spielberg’s explanation of why he is who he is, now and forever. It is also one of his most rich and rewarding family tales yet.

[The Fabelmans] is all beautifully, meticulously rendered, and not a little glazed in wistful sentiment: an infinitely tender, sometimes misty ode to the people who raised him and the singular passion for cinema that shaped him.