My rating	IMDb		Rotten Tomatoes
	Critics	Audience	Critics	Audience
9/10	83/100	8.3/10	95%	90%

Numbers obtained from IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes on November 12, 2022.

In an era when origin stories are becoming ubiquitous in both movies and television shows, why not, instead of super-heroes, villains, drug lords’ lawyers, etc., tell the origin story of one of the biggest movie directors of our lifetime? Sure, there’s Spielberg, the 2017 documentary that could do the trick and be enough to learn about his life. There is, however, another way to tell that story, focusing on certain aspects of his upbringing and his family. And that’s what he does in The Fabelmans.

Going to the movies as a child can have a big impact in someone’s life. Depending on the experience, it can be life-changing, which is what happens to Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord) after his parents (Michelle Williams and Paul Dano) take him to see The Greatest Show on Earth in 1952. He leaves the theater speechless and dreams about what he saw on screen. He then tries to recreate a scene with a train crash with his parents’ camera, and that’s when his love of making movies begins.

Through his home-made films, the audience follows him and his family as they move to Arizona and he becomes a teenager (played by Gabriel LaBelle). Just like any family, there are conflicts and disagreements, some of which shape Sammy’s life forever.

Gabriel LaBelle gives an extraordinary performance as Sammy and the audience can feel both his pain and his joy in crucial moments of his life. Paul Dano and Seth Rogen are always interesting to watch, but Michelle Williams steals the scene playing a very complex and contradictory character. The supporting cast is also very good, but the real breakout is Chloe East, responsible for the funniest scene in the whole movie.

The wonderful score, by John Willams, fits perfectly and sets the mood both for the home-made movies that Sammy shows to his family and friends and for the movie overall.

The last five minutes or so of The Fabelmans remind us why Steven Spielberg got where he is and the last shot just proves how much he learned from his predecessors and what a gift that is to all of us.