First section no plot spoilers 😁
Steven Spielberg's long-awaited semi-autobiographical movie delivers the greatest home movie ever made! The film was in gestation for over 20 years, but out of sensitivity to his parents remained unmade until their passing. That in itself demonstrates Spielberg's sensitivity to the emotions of others - a central theme of this film's plot. This sensitivity is like one of two cords twisted together, the other being a passion for storytelling through film. I imagine that it would be possible to view the film and see only one cord which would present a good movie. However, to recognise the two cords and how they are linked in the soul of Spielberg is to watch a great movie!
This allows the film to be seen on the one hand as a two and half hour session of family therapy, whilst on the other, a record of how someone's vocation to be a storyteller through film, is sparked into life and nurtured to powerful fruition. Choosing for himself the family name Fabelman in the film, reinforces his storytelling credentials.
There is so much in this film. It is a gift from a legend whose 34 movies include some of the most memorable of the last 50 years. You could watch this film from its Jewish angle, or from a family dynamics angle, or a love triangle, or movie making or the power of a story to move you. You cannot miss the impact that editing in the art of storytelling has, and how Sam, from an early age, understood and used this power to great effect. If a story doesn't move you, it has failed. This is a most moving film and I'm very happy to give it 9/10.
This fuller section contains some plot spoilers
The opening scene of the film sets up the twin cords beautifully. Outside a New Jersey movie theatre, Sam Fabelman's parents are anxious as they take five year old Sammy to see his first movie - The Greatest show on Earth. They are worried about his reaction to the film. Sammy's father Burt (Paul Dano), explains the technical and scientific principles that underlie filmmaking and why the characters will appear to be so large on the screen. Sammy then turns 180 degrees to receive his mother Mitzi's (Michelle Williams) explanations which are all about art, creativity and emotion. This sets up the central tension between Sammy's parents - the nerdy, scientific, seemingly cold father and the existentialist, creative and passionate mother.
Young Sammy is traumatised by a train crash in the film in which a train carrying a circus on tour, hits a car on the track before ploughing into a second train, also part of the circus entourage. The ensuing violent destruction of people and property is what causes Sammy his difficulty. So affected by what he saw, Sammy asks for a train set for Hanukkah and after receiving it, one night stages a reconstruction of the train crash with his toy train, a car and a wooden Noah's Ark filled with animals like the circus train.
The noise wakens the sleeping the family and Sammy is chastised by his father for damaging expensive engineering whilst his mother immediately sees it as Sammy's way of trying to understand and in some way control the crash he had seen in the film. Recognising how important this process is to Sammy, his mother gives him the family 16mm film camera and invites him to recreate the crash one more time and film it. That way he can watch the film over and over again rather than having to smash up the train set. She says to him "don't tell your father. It will be our little secret".
This introduces a recurring theme whereby on a number of occasions, Sammy is told by a variety of people "this will be our little secret". Sammy becomes the keeper of secrets. Realising the power of film to tell a story Sammy begins making home movies with his sisters before advancing to making films with his Scout Troop. The acquisition of an editing machine allows him to cut and paste different scenes which adds another dimension to Sammy's ability to tell stories through film.
Burt's understanding of the developing technology of computing means that he is head-hunted and given a senior role in a tech company in Phoenix, Arizona meaning that the family uproots and moves south. Burt's best friend and business colleague Bennie (Seth Rogen) is given a job in the same company and relocates with the family to maintain his relationship to Sammy as a surrogate uncle and friend of the family.
The family, along with the ever present Bennie, who is as annoying and he is likeable, take a camping holiday in the Arizona countryside. Sammy captures the fun and frolicking of the holiday on film. Shortly after the vacation, Mitzi's mother dies. In the death scene we have one of many cinematic 'devices' that the film contains. The camera zooms in on the mother's pulsating jugular as the monitor beeps in rhythm. The pulsating stops, the monitor falls silent and the worst is feared. Mitzi is distraught.
Slumping into a depression, Mitzi mopes around the house and is unable to energise and find an outlet for her creativity or passion. Sammy has more movie shooting scheduled with the Scouts when his father asks him to set aside his 'hobby' and edit the vacation film in an effort to produce something that will lift Mitzi's spirits. In the same way that Sammy's earlier home movie of the train crash was a vehicle for his understanding and response to develop, so Burt asks Sammy to make a movie to achieve similar outcomes for Mitzi.
As he reluctantly edits the pieces of film together, Sammy notices that the camera has caught several scenes with Mitzi and Bennie in the background carrying on in away that clearly shows they have feelings for each other. Sammy decides not to put these scenes in the final edit for his mother but edits them into another movie telling a very different story.
A surprise visit from Mitzi's uncle Boris (Judd Hirsch) a former lion-tamer who has also worked in the movies results in a physical and violent encounter between Boris and Sammy where Boris tells Sammy that both his family and his art will tear his heart apart! This leaves a lastin impression on Sammy.
Sammy increasingly cold-shoulders his mother and they have a confrontation after which Sammy shows Mitzi his Mitzi/Bennie movie by way of explanation. She again becomes distraught and they are reconciled. This becomes another little secret to keep. Bennie is also given the cold-shoulder by Sammy.
Burt's success in his field results in another act of head-hunting which uproots the settled family as they move to Saratoga, California - this time without Bennie. Tensions increase, the family becomes even more dysfunctional and at High School Sam experience anti-Semitism, bullying and romance. As the family relocate from a rental property to a new build, Mitzi's growing depression and Burt's discovery of the affair, result in the announcement of a divorce which devastates Sam and his three sisters.
Mitzi and the girls return to Phoenix and Bennie, whilst Sam lives with Burt in Los Angeles. Sam wants to drop out of college and pursue his vocation of film making. Burt finally encourages Sam to continue writing to film and TV production companies and finally he is offered a junior role on the production of Hogan's Heroes (which I remember fondly from my childhood!). He is introduced to legendary Director John Ford who, in an ill-tempered five minutes, gives him a lesson on where to place the horizon in a shot to make it more interesting. Elated by this gem of advice he skips down the studio lot and the camera tilts to reposition the horizon!
There is plenty of the story that I have not touched on, so I hope I haven't spoiled it for anyone who hasn't seen it. Enjoy!
