BEFORE: Paul Dano carries over again from "The Girl Next Door" and I have to just talk about Paul Dano for a minute, the beef that Tarantino has with him, which was a big news story in Hollywood about a month ago. I joked about it last night, but since I've now watched THREE films in a row with Dano, I can weigh in on this. Tarantino called him "weak" in an interview, and suggested that he was a terrible actor and that his performance ruined "There Will Be Blood", which he felt would have easily been one of his top five films if it had not been for Dano's performance as a set of twins. The insight that I get from watching three films in a row with the same actor might carry a little more impact than focusing on one performance - for example, after three Jesse Eisenberg films in January, I felt he had a "type" of role that he tends to play, namely Jewish and nebbish-like, complaining to the point of being irritable. Well, in those cases, that is what the role demanded, or if not, then his presence kind of pushed those roles in that direction, the audience can't really make that distinction. His characters in "The Double", "The Art of Self-Defense", "A Real Pain" and "Roger Dodger" sort of all feel like extensions of the same character, and part of that OF COURSE is because they're played by the same guy in a similar fashion. But you could just as easily blame the screenwriters, perhaps for creating the same characters four times over, the lovable loser nebbish type that, for all we know, were just begging to be played by Eisenberg.
Paul Dano, on the other hand, has managed to play these total blank characters, again and again, and how much of that is the fault of the screenwriters, it's impossible to know. But the character he played in "Little Miss Sunshine" did not talk at all, like what is an actor supposed to do with that? It's a blank character, like he's almost not even there at all. The fact that Dano was able to do anything at all in that film, just with expressions, is a minor miracle - that's not an actor who is "weak". Brian Wilson in "Love & Mercy", Klitz in "The Girl Next Door", and Louis Ives in "The Extra Man", they're all that same kind of blank, "I don't know how to do this", sort of feather-in-the-wind kind of dumb guy who seems like he has trouble connecting socially and/or figuring out how to live his own life. This may be part Dano, part screenwriters, or him just being typecast in a certain type of role. His roles as the Riddler in "The Batman" and the guy he played in "Dumb Money" feel like maybe he realized he was doing the same thing over and over, and tried to go the other way with it, because the Riddler is known for being clever and in control of evil schemes. But if you look a certain way with a big round face, maybe casting directors tend to just see you as a blank. Still, if a director has a problem with an actor, they can just NOT cast that actor in their movies, and STFU. It's been a while since I watched "There Will Be Blood", but I'm betting that Daniel Day-Lewis' character seemed more powerful and dynamic when compared with those blankish twins played by Paul Dano, and that was the whole point.
THE PLOT: Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.
AFTER: Well, perhaps this film proves my point about Paul Dano - he plays the quiet, nerdy father and husband who doesn't realize until it's too late that his more dynamic best friend has caught the attention of his own wife, and that he's the odd man out in a love triangle. Things might have been different if he had shown any emotion at any point, or spoke out sooner, or realized that he had all the personality of a block of wood. But again, that's the character here, not necessarily just the actor. If Mr. Fableman had been more fun or more loving or more expressionistic in any way, maybe his wife wouldn't have fallen for someone else - but that's impossible to prove, we can only deal with the story that we're given, and the heart is a fickle thing, it wants what it wants, and that can easily change over time. Expecting romance dramas to give us lessons about how better to live our own lives is a fool's game, I suspect.
There are a couple of odd things that carry over from yesterday's film, like mostly today's film would seem to have nothing in common with "The Girl Next Door", however both films have a character in high school who really wants to be a filmmaker, that's not a common plot point. Both films have a main character who doesn't really get along with the jocks in his high school, but I guess that's not too unusual - in one film they just travel in different circles, while in the other one there's outright bullying going on. One film has a sex ed film being made during prom, and the other features the filmmaker character screening a film during prom. Now THAT's a weird coincidence, I think, even if it's not an exact match. But I guess films are made by filmmakers, and those filmmakers probably did not have typical prom nights - most young filmmakers spent prom night alone at home, I would imagine, wishing they could be making a movie. Both films also had a plot point with high school kids ditching class to go to the beach - this must just be a California thing?
It's a strange thing to say, but I'm not sure there's a completed story here, a full narrative arc with a beginning, middle and end, or if this is just a collection of odd things that Spielberg remembers about his childhood, which amount to nothing when they're all put together. Except TO HIM, this makes sense, because he lived this as a young boy and a teenager, so it kind of feels like he made this film for an audience of one, himself, as it just can't resonate on the same level with a majority of the people. So unfortunately I have to go with the latter possibility on this one, the whole film is nothing more than a sum of its weird, random parts.
It fits into the romance/relationship category because we know that Spielberg's mother left his father at some point, and committed to a new relationship with her husband's best friend and business partner. It didn't seem THAT odd when the Fabelman family moved to Phoenix, except that Mrs. Fabelman guilted her husband into creating a job there for "Uncle" Bennie, but it seems like maybe she had another goal in mind, perhaps she had already fallen out of love with Burt and was planning a few moves ahead? It's unclear...
It was a different time when the Fabelmans (Spielbergs) got married, that's for sure - people back then expected marriage to last a lifetime, if you did it right, however lifespans were also shorter, so probably half the people found themselves starting new relationships later in life, or just living out the rest of their days alone, I guess that's the alternative. Lifespans are longer now, and so I guess by extension fewer people expect their marriages to last until the end of their lives, and divorce is more commonplace, and also less stigmatized. So perhaps Mrs. Fabelman was just acknowledging that she had options, she didn't have to spend the rest of her life with the dull and boring "blank" that Burt was, geez that's a role that's right up Paul Dano's alley, right? Who wouldn't want to be in a relationship with the fun guy instead, I mean Burt's a symbol of the smart, silent type, but you've got to have some fun in life, too.
It's telling that young Sammy learned the power of filmmaking when it revealed to him his mother's secret, she was seen in the background of the camping footage he shot, holding Bennie tight and perhaps kissing him as well. And yet Sammy still wanted to be a filmmaker, after learning how it could tear a family apart - does that track? Then I suppose it's also ironic that Burt urged Sammy to make the camping film, in order to cheer up Mitzi, and then the truths it revealed ended up breaking up the Fabelmans' marriage. Well, I guess it was inevitable at some point.
It's a bit odd that the same guy who played the young Steven Spielberg here was last seen in "Saturday Night" playing the young Lorne Michaels - he got to play two of the most iconic producers in the entire industry, back to back. That's either luck, or it's being typecast as the young nebbish to offset the success those two gentlemen have had, in order to gain the sympathy of the audience. Sure, they're millionaire geniuses, but they're also neurotic, just like us, that's meant to be comforting, I suppose.
But I'm back on the fact that this story doesn't really have a beginning, it just kind of drops us into Sammy Fabelman's life the day that his parents took him to see the movie "The Greatest Show on Earth", like is that the earliest thing that Steven Spielberg can remember? It's so random - and then there's not really any kind of ending, either, here Sammy gets an offer to work on the TV show "Hogan's Heroes" and after the interview he gets a chance to meet director John Ford, who made the film "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", and is played by David Lynch. It's another great (?) moment in Spielberg's life, perhaps, but it doesn't mean much to me or, I'm guessing, too many people in the audience. It's also notable that the film ends HERE and not a few months later, when Spielberg just walked into Universal Studios and set up shop there to direct "Jaws", without ever really being officially hired to do so. Talk about "fake it until you make it", right?
Directed by Steven Spielberg (producer of "Twisters" and "Maestro", director of "West Side Story" (2021))
Also starring Michelle Williams (last seen in "The United States of Leland"), Seth Rogen (last heard in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie"), Gabriel LaBelle (last seen in "Saturday Night"), Mateo Zoryan Francis-DeFord, Keeley Karsten, Alina Brace, Julia Butters (last seen in "Freakier Friday"), Birdie Borria, Judd Hirsch (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Sophia Kopera, Jeannie Berlin (last seen in "You Hurt My Feelings"), Robin Bartlett (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Sam Rechner, Oakes Fegley (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Chloe East (last seen in "The Wolf of Snow Hollow"), Isabelle Kusman (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Chandler Lovelle, Gustavo Escobar (last seen in "Pain & Gain"), Nicolas Cantu, Cooper Dodson (last seen in "Mr. Right"), Gabriel Bateman (last seen in "Unhinged"), Stephen Matthew Smith, James Urbaniak (last seen in "Oppenheimer"), Kalama Epstein, Connor Trinneer (last seen in "American Made"), Lane Factor, Greg Grunberg (last seen in "The Pallbearer"), David Lynch (last seen in "Beatles '64"), Jan Hoag (last seen in "Faster"), Paul Chepikian, Brinly Marum, Larkin Campbell (last seen in "J. Edgar")
RATING: 5 out of 10 Boy Scouts working as a film crew
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