The Fabelmans

Sammy Fabelman's formative years are in the post-WWII era, he eventually the oldest of four offspring and the only son of Burt and Mitzi Fabelman. Another constant in their house is "Uncle" Bennie Loewy, Burt and Mitzi's friend and Burt's coworker. While both nurturing of Sammy in their own but different ways, engineer Burt is the practical one, while MItzi, who arguably could have become a concert pianist if she put her mind to it, is the artistic, emotional one. While initially scared by the description Burt and Mitzi tell him of the larger than life images, Sammy ends up being mesmerized by what he sees on screen when they take him to see his first movie, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), as an adolescent. He is captivated by what he knows is not real but created in a way to make it seem real. He becomes obsessed with film and movie making, he filming and editing his own movies often recreating his visions of what he sees in his favorite movies, such as the train crash in "Greatest Show", or a typical gunfight in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). As he continues to make movies, he making it clear that he wants to make it his life's work does not sit well with Burt. Sammy eventually sees that movies can not only entertain, but that the camera can act as a keen observance of what is happening around him and that movies can tell a very specific point of view if edited in a certain way. He goes through this process as he deals with real life, such as meeting his "scary" maternal Uncle Boris for the first time, as the family moves to a predominantly WASP and in some circles anti-Semitic neighborhood in Northern California while Sammy is close to graduating high school, and as he discovers a family secret that had been hiding in plain sight.