Thankfully, The Fabelmans is much more about people than it is about filmmaking. I break from the consensus opinion on a number of acclaimed movies about movies (The Player, Ed Wood, and most of all Cinema Paradiso), but this goes in the opposite direction. Outside of the very beginning and end, there isn’t a reliance on the supposed inherent magic of the silver screen.
It’s possibly Spielberg’s strangest picture. Tonal shifts abound, performances fluctuate between subtle and enjoyably hammy on a line-to-line basis, and the vignette-focused structure allows for riskier choices that I doubt Spielberg would let fly in his more narrative work. Of course all of that is right up my alley. Judd Hirsch as Sammy’s great uncle, for instance—he could have just shown up and delivered a basic “you gotta be a bit selfish to be an artist” speech. Instead, he comes in like a whirlwind, forecast by a phantom phone call. He’s grieving, he’s eating with gusto, he’s sleeping on the floor and suggesting you do too. You get the feeling that his life extends far beyond the pages of the script.
Not to undermine Spielberg’s contributions, but I think a lot of the film’s personality stems from Tony Kushner. Meeting him was definitely the best development of Spielberg's career, at least for my taste. Kushner has now cowritten three of my favorites: Lincoln, West Side Story, and The Fabelmans (I've yet to see Munich). It’s not as if he rids the movies of Spielbergian sentimentality, but he shapes it and adds much-needed texture.
Note: I don't often acknowledge casting, even though I probably should, but it's incredible how well they picked perfectly early-'60s-looking people for supporting and background. Spielberg really is the master of period casting, even when I'm not a fan of everything else going on in his films.