[imagesource: Universal Pictures]

Steven Spielberg has finally made a deeply personal project.

The world-famous director is adept at keeping us at arm’s length, creating 30-plus movies that have only really given us a vague impression of who he is as a person.

Having premiered on Saturday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, Spielberg’s personal drama is loaded with character-defining moments, memories, and private insights.

The Fabelmans is all about the famed director’s own life, although it’s not so much your run-of-the-mill biopic and more a truly mesmerising, semi-fictionalised, coming-of-auteur story.

The New York Post has called it “the best movie of the year so far” for being “gripping, visually mesmeric” and boasting an “exceptional, grounded script”.

Focusing on a young boy discovering his love for film as his family falls apart around him, The Fabelmans explores how Spielberg’s parents’ divorce might just have been the breakup that launched a thousand blockbusters (Jaws, E.T., Schindler’s List, Jurassic World, etc).

The Guardian recognises this film as something both restrained and grand:

Post-Roma we’ve seen a glut of big auteurs going small to bring something of their own previously unexplored past to life, toeing a fine line between vulnerable investigation and vainglorious indulgence.

Despite his often unfairly simplified association with full-throated sentimentality, Spielberg’s attempt is actually relatively restrained and rooted in reality, avoiding the obvious cloy that could so easily come with the territory.

The script, from Spielberg and Tony Kushner, speeds past the easy potholes and takes us somewhere less expected, focusing on smaller, not-as-easily explained emotions rather than the swell of the big.

It has however been criticised as being a tad too sterile.

While Michelle Williams speeds to the front of the Oscar race with an unforgettable performance, The Fabelmans also stars Gabriel LaBelle, Paul Dano, and Seth Rogen.

Take a trip down Spielberg’s “incredibly endearing” memory lane:

The Fabelmans will be released in US theatres on November 11.

[sources:guardian&nypost]