The Fabelmans 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Fabelmans 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 9, 2023

The Fabelmans is the semiautobiographical biopic centered on Steven Spielberg, who many would argue to be the most popular, one of the most influential, and perhaps the finest filmmaker of the second half of the 20th century. Spielberg, along with longtime collaborator Tony Kushner, co-wrote the film, which Spielberg also directed. The film centers around a young Spielberg, as Sammy Fabelman (played by both Gabriel LaBelle and Mateo Zoryan Francis-DeFord), and his experiences in life and the birth and development of his lifelong love for the film medium. The film weaves together several narrative elements that explore the boy's influences both behind the camera and before the march of life as he enters into adulthood and a career that came to reshape the cinema landscape forever.

Sammy Fabelman's parents, Burt and Mitzi (Paul Dano and Michelle Williams) change his life's trajectory when they take him to see The Greatest Show on Earth. Trains, and train crashes in particular, then obsess him. Rather than continuously wreck his models, his mother secretly permits him to film a train wreck using his father's camera so he can relive the experience over and over again. Gradually, Sammy's passion turns to filmmaking. He becomes ever more skillful and delights audiences with every amateur movie he makes. Meanwhile, his life evolves around him, particularly as his mother deals with declining mental health and as both external and internal influences threaten to tear the family apart.

Spielberg assembles a masterwork of narrative construction in which the film world and the real world intersect not only through what young Sammy's lens sees, but how it reflects his life beyond the mere capture of a moment. One of the film's key plot points, it would seem, is as much in how Sammy edits the films as the way he shoots them. His life is constantly, and often uncontrollably, evolving around him, but he finds control in how he can tell the stories he builds. That is vital in the character's growth and in the overall, and overarching, family dynamics that are just at the center of The Fablemans as Sammy's growing love for, and skill in, the filmmaking process. Sammy's films always, in some way, reflect his personal state, express his emotions, and offer him opportunity to explore his world, outside of his body and within his heart and mind, with a careful precision that real life cannot offer. The film's best moments, then, come in the intersection of life and film.

Sammy’s story largely focuses on his father and his mother in his more formative years, the former of whom is a workaholic concerned only with his own upward mobility regardless of what his career means to his family’s happiness and togetherness, and the latter of whom grows increasingly distant for several reasons which the film explores in due time and in fairly expressive content both within the film proper and through the lens of Sammy’s camera. In the second half of the film, the story shifts to Sammy’s life as both a high school student and a promising filmmaker. It explores his time involved with a first love interest and it also deconstructs his Jewish heritage: how it comes under attack at a new school and how Sammy once again turns to film to deal with the emotional burdens of the life he’s living. The sense of seamless balance between the delicate nature of Sammy’s life and its emotional reflection in film is quite superb, telling not only Spielberg’s own life story but also opening the film medium itself for reflection and its artistic merit not as simply a collection of moving still images but also as a depiction of how the human heart and soul can be transcribed, defined, and molded by it.

The Fabelmans 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.

The 2160p/Dolby Vision UHD release of The Fabelmans offers a satisfying upgrade over the standard 1080p Blu-ray. The picture sees gains in overall filmic clarity and texture; the image is appreciably sharper, offering more refined, more pinpoint, more expressive facial details and clothing elements. The UHD's gains are immediately obvious when watching the film on UHD soon after the initial Blu-ray viewing. In side-by-side comparisons the Blu-ray appears notably smoother, but it does not look smooth on its own (quite the contrary). Still, it is clear that the UHD is its textural superior, bringing out sharper content all around the frame, in bright daylight and in low-light interiors alike. Speaking of, black levels are superb. The film utilizes blacks and shadows very effectively as both a setting and a narrative device when Sammy's films are viewed in a closet, projected in a dark room, or edited in low light. Blacks are beautiful here, with precision shadow detail and depth that the Blu-ray cannot equal. Color output offers more expressive tones as well. They are more vivid, more deeply saturated, more expertly nuanced. Skin tones take on a healthier, fuller look as well. Noise is kept to a minimum. This is a very attractive presentation from Universal.

The Fabelmans 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Universal releases The Fabelmans to the Blu-ray format with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless soundtrack; neither this nor the companion Blu-ray offer Dolby Atmos audio. As it is, the 7.1 track is more than sufficient for the presentation. Beyond a few moments of amplified audio, such as two key early film scenes (the model trains maneuvering through the speakers, a tornado blowing about the soundstage), the track offers more or less straightforward audio elements, with centered and clear dialogue and well-defined music. Musical definition, depth, and spacing are excellent, with the latter particularly impressive for both front side stretch and surround envelopment. Certainly, some more densely packed scenes, including the beach and dance scenes later in the film, offer some impressive envelopment, but rarely is the track called upon to work in heftier, meatier content. The presentation satisfies overall, and it is doubtful that Atmos would have added anything beyond a mild sense of added spatial immersion.

The Fabelmans 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This UHD release of The Fabelmans contains three extras. A Blu-ray copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• The Fabelmans: A Personal Journey (2160p/Dolby Vision, 11:00): Exploring project origins, the merging of reality and fiction, the need for the film to be relatable to all viewers, the depiction of a Jewish household in the film, Spielberg's relationship with his parents, and more.
• Family Dynamics (2160p/Dolby Vision, 15:28): Casting the main roles, the reasons for the casting, and the qualities the actors brought to the story and the film.
• Crafting the World of The Fabelmans (2160p/Dolby Vision, 22:04): Production design details, costumes, the cameras seen throughout the film, editing, making the beach and prom sequences, crafting a key scene on the one-year anniversary of Arnold Spielberg's death, the John Ford scene, John Williams' work on the film, and more.

The Fabelmans 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Spielberg's The Fabelmans pushes the filmmaker to capture movie magic from a different perspective. Though low on spectacle, the film is big on narrative and offers a substantial commentary on the filmmaking process, which is interwoven into his lead character's life. It's an incredible journey through life and cinema that will delight not only fans of the filmmaker but also fans of the medium. Universal's UHD is excellent, offering high quality video and audio presentations in addition to several extras. Very highly recommended.