It was revealed on Tuesday that Steven Spielberg’s newest film, The Fabelmans, will be nominated for a whopping seven awards at this year’s Academy Awards.
The Fabelmans is a family drama starring Gabriel LaBelle as Sammy, Michelle Williams as Sammy’s mom Mitzi, and Paul Dano as Sammy’s dad Burt. It is being billed as his most personal effort to date. The Fabelmans has been met with nothing but praise since its premiere.
The film follows aspiring filmmaker Sammy as he interacts with his parents and three sisters; the story is based on Spielberg’s own childhood.
Sammy’s life is turned upside down when his parents decide to split up, but how faithfully does the story reflect Spielberg’s own upbringing? Permit me to zoom in a bit closer.
Is The Fabelmans based on a true story?
When advertising the movie, LaBell, 20, said that Spielberg, 76, had confirmed that everything in the script was based on genuine events.
According to Yahoo!, the actor shared: ‘This movie is his life. You don’t want to ruin Steven Spielberg’s life.
‘The first thing I asked him was, “How much of this script really happened to you?” And he said “All of it”.’
Seth Rogan, who plays the family’s buddy Bennie, told People that he witnessed Spielberg “tear many times on filming,” further establishing the film’s autobiographical nature.
‘It was a very emotional experience. He was crying a lot on set,’ Rogan said.
‘It’s very directly based on his life and pretty much everything that happens in the movie is something that happened to him.
‘As we were shooting, I’d be like, “Did this happen in real life?” and the answer was “yes” a hundred percent of the time.’
Spielberg’s parents, Leah Adler and Arnold Spielberg, did in fact divorce, and like Sammy in the film, Spielberg found out his mother was cheating on his father when he was a teenager.
The secret was the most important one his mother and he had shared since his discovery at the age of 16, and Spielberg told the New York Times in November, “That was one of the toughest things, I believe, that I had to sit down and decide to uncover.”
Sammy’s resentment at his parents, who are continuously uprooting the family, is another powerful theme in the film.
Sammy laments that his family are ‘the only Jewish people’ in the area, which echoes past comments made by Spielberg to publisher Behrman House.
‘I felt like I was the only Jew in high school,’ said the award-winning director.
‘I just simply wanted to deny being Jewish. I was ashamed because I was living on a street where at Christmas, we were the only house with nothing but a porch light on.
‘I so much wanted to be assimilated.’
But what about the film’s monkey? Was it true that Spielberg’s mother brought home a monkey as a pet for him and his sisters to enjoy? This, in fact, was what she did.
Before passing away in 2017, Adler told her story of finding the animal in a Phoenix pet store and bringing it home in a cage in the back of her Jeep in the HBO documentary Spielberg.
Adler decided to adopt a monkey because she felt bad for the lonely and miserable animal after it was taken from its mother.
How many Oscar nominations does The Fabelmans have?
On Tuesday, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Los Angeles, actors Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams made the official nomination announcement.
The Fabelmans was announced to be competing for seven awards in all, including best picture, best director, best actress, best supporting actor, best original script, best production design, and best original soundtrack.
What is The Fabelmans’ release date in the UK?
The film, which was nominated for an Oscar, will premiere in theatres across the United Kingdom on January 27.