Movie recap: The Fabelmans (2022)

The film opens in New Jersey in 1952, Burt and Mitzi take their son Sammy to the movies for the first time. The boy is afraid to go in, but his parents convince him that he's going to have a great time. The three of them go in to see "The Greatest Show on Earth", a movie that fascinates Sammy, but also leaves him shocked when he sees a scene in which a train crashes into a car. The couple also has Reggie, Natalie and baby Lisa, and that's when they all celebrate Hanukkah, a typical celebration of the Jewish religion. Sammy happily celebrates that his parents have bought him a train set. The boy rides it and teaches them how to make the trains crash. It is then that Mitzi realizes that the scene from the movie has stuck in her memory. The woman buys her a video camera so that her son can record the crash scene and watch it as many times as he wants until he overcomes his fear. Sammy then makes a short film of the train crash and shows it to his mother, who tells him it is the best film ever made.

The wife is a pianist and understands perfectly well that her son likes to create art, but not so much her husband, who tells Sammy several times that filming is a hobby and that soon he has to do something really important. The boy spends most of his childhood creating little films with his sisters and receiving constant visits from Benny, a co-worker of Burt's who has become almost part of the family. When Burt announces to his family that they will have to move to Arizona for work, the wife is angry with him because she tells him she doesn't want such a big change to affect her children. They are watching a tornado that Mitzi decides to take them to see up close, the woman almost crashes the car and that is when, totally distressed, she makes her children repeat that everything happens for a reason.

The Fabelmans move to Arizona. Sammy continues to record everything and after a few years uses the great deserts of the place to record with his fellow Boy Scouts. The friends go to see the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", which Sammy is clearly the only one motivated to see. After watching it, the boy gets it into his head to explore something similar. This time it even involves his father, who keeps telling him that this will all blow over and he'll end up doing something that actually helps people. Sammy, however, uses absolutely everything he sees around him so that he can then use it in his short films. This time he creates one with his friends that he introduces to everyone and gets a great reception.

The family, together with Uncle Benny, then goes on vacation to a camp that, unbeknownst to them, will completely change Sammy's life. There, Burt realizes how loved Benny is in his family and how much both his wife and children enjoy him. The man understands much more of both Mitzi's and Sammy's artistic desires when the woman begins to dance impromptu. Benny turns on the car lights so Sammy can record his mother. However, after returning from camp Mitzi's mother passes away and Mitzi goes into a huge depression. In an attempt to cheer up his wife, Burt decides to buy his son an editing machine, suggesting that his son make a video about his days at camp. Sammy tells him that he has a shoot that weekend and that's when Burt confronts his son, telling him that this is something important to his mother. That night, the woman suffers a nightmare commenting to her family that her mother has called to tell her that someone is coming. Sure enough, the next morning her uncle Boris, her mother's brother, appears. The man is quite peculiar, but he immediately connects with Sammy as he understands Sammy's passion for movies. Boris tells the boy not to give up on his dreams to make easy money, even though people around him are trying to discourage him from doing so.

After the visit Sammy starts working on the video about the camp. It is there, while editing, when he notices a detail that during the recording had gone completely unnoticed. Sammy observes how his mother and Benny, during several takes, are very close and affectionate with each other. He also understands that his mother is in love with Benny and that is why he begins to treat her badly for cheating on his father.

His pain, however, he channels it into his next film by trying to get one of the main characters to bring out everything in him. The boy successfully releases his war movie, but is unable to enjoy the moment because he is still angry with his mother and Benny. The woman, fed up with her son treating him badly in front of his sisters, confronts him by hitting him on the back. This makes Mitzi go to apologize to her son and it is when he shows her the cuts in which it is clear the love that Benny and she have for each other. Mitzi leaves devastated, imploring her son not to tell her father or her sisters. The family has to move again as Burt has a very important job opportunity.

This time, Benny will not be moving with them as, according to Burt, Benny is needed in Phoenix at his current job. Sammy angry at having to move and also angry because he sees what is happening between his parents, decides to stop making movies and even sells his camera. It is Benny who insists on giving him the latest model before the family leaves, telling him that he can hate it all he wants, but not to give up his dream because it would tear his mother apart.

The Fabelmans move to California, staying in a rented house until theirs is finished there.

Sammy starts high school, quickly running into trouble for being Jewish. Logan and Chad start picking on him and calling him "Bagelman" instead of his real last name. Sammy, angry, ends up telling Logan's girlfriend that Logan is cheating on him with a redhead. The girl cuts him off and Logan punches Sammy all over the nose. The guy ends up telling Claudia and her friend Monica that he made the whole thing up, and that's when Monica asks him out. The girl is very devout and very Christian, but Sammy, in order to make out with her, does whatever she tells him to do. So the two start dating, her friend's parents invite him to their house for dinner. During dinner, Monica encourages Sammy to film a school party that takes place on the beach, and that's how Sammy resumes his passion for filming.

The boy has a great time, but it's the next day when everything falls apart. The Fabelmans move into their new home and it is there that Mitzie tells her children that they are getting a divorce.

Mitzi is still in love with Benny and this is something that one of her daughters can't help but throw in her face. Sammy, as a way of channeling the pain he's feeling, imagines it's all part of a movie he's filming. The boy unburdens himself to his sister and together they watch the video he created of when he filmed the holiday on the beach.

That night is the dance where they go to see his creation and it is also the night that Monica leaves Sammy when he, totally overwhelmed by the separation of their parents, tells her that he loves her while for her it's just a high school romance. It is then that Sammy releases the short film he has made of the day at the beach. In it, and thanks to the strength of the editing, Sammy manages to leave Logan as a perfect and very athletic boy. So much so that, after finishing the video, everyone praises Logan and he even earns a kiss from Claudia. This, far from making Logan happy, to Sammy's surprise, leaves him devastated. The boy doesn't understand why Sammy has praised him so much in the film when he actually acts terrible to him. That's when Sammy tells him that it was just what the movie needed.

When Chad arrives, whom Sammy has made a fool of in the short, it is Logan who stops the boy from hitting Sammy. Thus, Sammy gets Logan to respect him.

But what matters most to him is to be able to forgive his mother. The woman decides to talk to her son, telling him that she can't give up her love for Benny, just as he can't give up his love for the movies. The conversation gets Sammy to finally understand his mother and forgive her.

A year later, Sammy now lives with his father in Hollywood. Sammy suffers a panic attack that his father manages to control thanks to the fact that Mitzi suffered them often. The boy is overwhelmed because he can't find an opportunity in the difficult world of movies and that's when his father tells him to check the mail. The man already knows there's a surprise for his son, but he ends up opening a letter from his mother first, telling him how life is going with his sisters in Phoenix. In a photo, Burt sees Benny and Mitzi in an affectionate attitude, with Sammy realizing that his father still hasn't gotten over him. The next letter is from CBS, an American television network. There Sammy goes there, to whom an executive explains the next television project he has. Sammy tells the man that he's more interested in movies than TV and that's when the executive tells him to take it easy, he's lucky, a great filmmaker has his office next door and he's going to introduce him to him. Sammy is amazed to see that he is going to meet the great John Ford, in a brief conversation the director tells him to look at some pictures and point out where the horizon is in each of them. Sammy takes away from that meeting a valuable lesson from the man and that is that shots are always better when the horizon is at the top or bottom since according to the filmmaker the horizon right in the middle is boring.

The film ends in a funny way with Sammy walking to the horizon which is perfectly centered, the cameraman realizes this and raises the camera a bit to get to the end.

****

© Emby Lat

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