I enjoyed my time with this one, but something about it felt a little hollow and incomplete. I enjoyed following Sammys life as he lived through the blossoming of videography and film technology, and being lucky enough to be on the forefront of contemporary film creation. You can almost feel the nostalgia and rose tinted memories Spielberg has for this time of his life, much the way most of us have fond memories of our childhood and growing up. But there is no real connective throughline, there is no start and end point, it is a slice-of-life in the truest sense of the phrase. I can't deny that the film is well shot, well made, makes constant nudges and winks to the audience about film making techniques and cameo appearances, but something about it felt a little incomplete. Maybe that's the nature of an autobiographical picture such as this, it's more a collection of memories and set pieces that comprise this portion of Stevens life, but as a movie viewing experience I found it a little unrounded and narratively unsatisfying. But maybe that's the point?
Still, gorgeously shot and interesting from a technical perspective, The Fabelmans is a love letter to the process of making movies and the worlds they let us escape to and inhabit. While I don't think any one performance stands out as exceptional in this, the actual look, feel and makeup of this movie will probably take some of the awards come Oscar season, and probably rightly so. It just didn't tick all the boxes for me to think that it's worthy of a Best Picture or Best Actor/Actress nomination.