Steven Spielberg
towers over the screen and invites us to the film experience that is about to happen;
calls it a love letter to both the media and his wacky family.
You thank and bow and hope for a hell of a trip.
After all, it is the father of "The Shark", "The Hunt for the Lost Treasure", "ET" and all the other iconic titles that sit there and look down on one.
Granted, Spielberg has been one of the most influential filmmakers in Hollywood, and probably many of his works have an obvious place in the Hall of Fame of film history, but dramas have never been his forte.
The result is usually a little too sentimental, a little too arranged to really burn.
So here too
The first
act is hard-hitting in the subgenre of fast-paced family portraiture with joint singing in the car, quirky relatives and insane hijinks.
Cheeky, "cozy" and drenched in variety show-like piano clapping.
Jeez.
But it will work.
After this orgy in Kajsa Kavat, young Spielberg begins his journey towards the potentate he later became.
As a film buff, it is of course fun to see how a director's star is born, but the film geekery is never allowed to really blossom, it is clear that it is the family that is the main role and the scenes from there are still slightly stereotyped.
However, Spielberg is absolutely right to cast Paul Dano and Michelle Williams to play the oddball parents, they both (especially Dano) succeed in illustrating the lighter air of mild madness that, if the film is to be believed, distinguished the pears' personas and relationship.
"The Fabelmans"
has received top marks at home, possibly the average American colleague is not repulsed by the sentimental tone, nor do they seem to have a problem with the few dark parts that still exist, have no further blackness.
No friction, no heat.
Maybe I'm asking too much, looking for real life in a corner.
It's stylish and stylish, in a professional way.
But now that he's waited so long to do justice to his impressive feat and troubled upbringing, one wonders why he didn't take in more, create something other than a glossy postcard from memory lane.