Editor's Note: For the seventh consecutive year, Dawn and The Husband will be spending a few nights attending the Toronto International Film Festival, known to the locals as TIFF. While they can now proudly call themselves seasoned veterans of this madness, they have scaled back their viewing opportunities due to recent bouts with Covid and the fact that the TIFF website is a colossal shitshow, causing them to totally screw up our package. The roster of films is back up to pre-pandemic levels but is disappointingly sparse this year on digital viewing. Therefore, there will only be three films screened. Sitting through a two to three-hour film while masked is not ideal, but we do it in the name of normalcy and entertainment. TIFF still serves as a tremendous distraction from the world's ills and allows for some much-needed escapism during these tumultuous times. The next several posts will focus exclusively on TIFF and will offer very short bullet point reviews for the movies seen. You've all been warned.
When was the last time you went to a movie after 8:00pm? How about even later than that? When selecting our films for this year's edition of TIFF, we were dismayed by how many of our favourites were limited to late-night viewings. TIFF has evolved over the years, but no change seems as pronounced and noticeable as limiting many daytime screenings to industry and the press. We used to be able to attend a screening at noon; now, many of those times are severely curtailed to the public. I don't know if this is a product of returning to a post-pandemic festival or if it is a natural outgrowth of the industry, but I am less than enamoured by the policy. TIFF has become less the "People's Festival" and more an industry standard. I'm not impressed.
It is how we found ourselves in a theatre for a 9:00pm showing of Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans. This film is Spielberg's first ever shown at TIFF and is definitely a hot ticket. There is no hiding the highly personal nature of this film for the great director. He takes us back to his childhood and adolescence and shows us, in muted detail, the influences of his art. It is a love letter to his parents, siblings, and the movies. While we weren't fortunate enough to be at the screening he was at, Mr. Spielberg felt it essential to have his three sisters in the audience at the premiere on Saturday. I suspect he mined their memories as well for this film. I am pretty sure he couldn't have made this film while his parents were still alive. His father died in 2020 at 102, while his mother died at the ripe old age of 97. He probably needed some distance from them to make such a personal piece of art.
While it is fun to surmise how Spielberg came to many of his ideas and film techniques, this movie is really Michelle Williams' tour de force. She plays his flighty and fabulous mother with such conviction that I almost felt like I was witnessing Leah Spielberg through Mitzie Fabelman. She imbues this highly complex character with so many layers and subtleties. Ms. Williams will undoubtedly be recognized during awards season, and I won't be surprised to see Judd Hirsch with a nomination as well.
Spielberg doesn't shy away from his Judaism or the antisemitism he faced as a young man. It obviously informed his character a great deal, and the importance of his place as an outsider is sprinkled throughout his films. That said, there was one bit of Judaica that really bugged me. At the film's beginning, the Fabelmans are lighting a chanukiyah, and they are doing it wrong. They are lighting it from left to right rather than from right to left. It was a raspberry seed in my Jewish tooth. I realize this is picayune from a Jew, but I guarantee it will be noted by many upon the film's release. Is there anybody out there who can get word to Mr. Spielberg so that he might remedy the problem?
It seems almost cliche to say that a Spielberg film is fantastic, but The Fabelmans is fantastic. It is a character-driven film that gives tremendous insight into one of the greatest artists of his generation. I just wish that I could have seen it at a more reasonable hour.
Dawn and The Husband give The Fabelmans two enthusiastic YUPS.
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