Justice for Burt Fabelman: Mitzi Missed Out

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A little over two years ago, I was driving to work around 8:30 am on a snowy January day in Canada. I knew that the nominations for the 95th Academy Awards were being announced, but since I was driving, I couldn’t watch the livestream. I tuned into the car radio. My face fell when the host read the names for Best Supporting Actor- no Paul Dano.

Top 20 Films of 2022: #6- The Fabelmans | Carnivorous Studios

At the time, The Fabelmans was my favourite movie of 2022. (I hadn’t seen Aftersun yet. That has since taken the top spot, but The Fabelmans is a close number two.) While I love every performance in the movie, I have a soft spot for Paul Dano as Burt Fabelman.

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Burt Fabelman is the father of aspiring filmmaker, Sam (Gabriel LaBelle), the film’s protagonist. He married Mitzi (Michelle Williams) at least five years before the events of the film take place. He works as an engineer for General Electric with his best friend, Bennie (Seth Rogen). He is a logical, numbers-driven foil to his pianist wife and visual artist son.

I first became aware of Paul Dano when I saw Little Miss Sunshine as a teenager. (Minor spoiler for that movie) He manages to evoke so much without words for most of the film. When he finally speaks in the film’s climax, he delivers some of the movie’s best dialogue. And yes, teenaged me found him very attractive. I still do.

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I love every Paul Dano performance I’ve seen: There Will Be Blood, Prisoners, Okja, and in the same year as The Fabelmans, he rocked as The Riddler in The Batman. Burt Fabelman is a different role for him. He plays a lot of villains, and when he does play a good guy it’s often someone edgy or turbulent. Burt Fabelman is a dorky dad. He’s also a complex character. Here’s why he’s the character I would date.

  1. We both know what it’s like to be the dorkiest person in the room.

In the first half of the film, the Fabelman family goes on a camping trip with honourary Uncle Bennie. Burt tries to show his kids how to build a campfire. The character is an engineer, like Spielberg’s father, Arnold, and he loves to get intricate about the mechanics of the process. His family gets bored. The kids go watch Bennie swing Mitzi back and forth on a loose tree trunk. Burt stays to build the fire alone.

The Fabelmans (2022) Directed by Steven Spielberg... | Movies Frames

I often find myself in Burt Fabelman’s position at social gatherings, particularly if said gatherings have anything to do with sports. I’m not a math person, but, like Burt, I have hobbies that a lot of people find uncool. I’d stay and build the fire with him.

2. He’s a caring person and “Acts of Service" is his love language.

When Mitzi’s mother dies in The Fabelmans, Burt immediately goes to hug her as she cries atop her mother’s hospital cot. She pulls away. He lets her be. He decides to buy Sam an editing tool instead. He urges Sam to make a video of the family camping trip.

I can relate to Burt here. I’m not the best at using physical touch or words of affirmation to show love. I’m not always great at picking up on social cues. I say the wrong thing or I don’t know if or when I should hug someone. I’m better at completing a task for someone.

For those unfamiliar, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, and Acts of Service are three of the five love languages identified by pastor Gary Chapman in his best-selling book. Numerous psychologists have debunked or expressed skepticism over Chapman’s book, so take his concepts with a grain of salt. That said, the five love languages template can offer a shorthand for folks to make sense of how they process relationships. It’s helped me.

Maybe Burt shouldn’t have volunteered his son to make the camping trip video, interfering with his war movie production, but his gift ultimately benefited Sam’s passion. The home movie ended up being great for Mitzi as well.

The Fabelmans (2022)

Later in the movie, when Sam arrives at his dad’s apartment after a stressful day at college and has a panic attack, Burt gets him tea and instructs him on how to calm down. It ends up being just what Sam needs. If Burt was a real person, and I could date him, I’d trust that he would take action to fulfill my needs as well. I’d do the same for him.

There can be a benefit to dating someone with a different love language. You can balance each other out and teach each other new things. That may be true, and while Burt Fabelman and I share the same love language, I think we could balance each other out in other ways.

3. He’s logical, I’m creative.

While I’m a lot less fun than Mitzi and Sam Fabelman, I lean towards creative pursuits over STEM. I never had a chance to learn piano, and I haven’t shot or edited a short film in years, but I am a writer. The arts are my favourite subject to write about. I’ve tried to get invested in math-oriented pursuits at different points in my life and it never works out. It’s not for me. Burt is a successful engineer and not interested in creative pursuits. If Burt Fabelman and I could date, we would help each other grow by teaching each other new ways of looking at the world. We’d be a great combination of similar and different.

4. He can be very funny.

I doubt the character fancies himself a comedian. He doesn’t love Bennie’s antics at the dinner table. He doesn’t have a conventional idea of fun (see: the fire-building scene), but there’s a dryness to him that could make me laugh. His facial expression when he comes home from the grocery store and sees that Mitzi has adopted a monkey is everything.

5. He’s Willing to Admit When He’s Wrong.

Earlier in this article, I referred to a scene late in the movie, when Sam has a panic attack and Burt brings him tea to calm him down. At this point, Burt and Mitzi are divorced. Burt lives in California for work, and Mitzi has moved back to Arizona to pursue a romantic relationship with Bennie. Burt is Sam’s closest family contact while he attends college in California. Shortly after his panic attack, Sam shares family photos with his dad. Burt smiles at photos of his three daughters, living in Arizona with their mom, but his expression shifts when he sees the corner of the photo- Mitzi and Bennie laughing by the barbeque. His hurt face resonates with anyone who has ever experienced unrequited love.

This is the first time in the movie that we see Sam express sympathy for his dad. Throughout the film, Sam’s anger at his family situation prevents him from seeing his parents’ hurt. This is, of course, understandable for a child. Sam’s reaction to his dad’s body language in this scene helps sell the emotion. He’s learned to see his dad as a person. He apologizes for sharing the photo.

What Burt says next indicates to the viewer the emotional journey the photo took him on. He tells Sam, “If you don’t want to go to school don’t go.” He expresses skepticism that Sam’s filmmaking aspirations are viable but encourages Sam to find out for himself. Up until this point in the movie, Burt has pushed Sam to go to college and pursue a sensible career. His divorce changes his perspective. He did everything right in his marriage to Mitzi. It still failed. Being sensible isn’t always rewarded. He doesn’t want to watch his son go through life thinking it is.

Paul Dano missed an Oscar nomination for The Fabelmans. I’m not saying he should have won, but it should have been his second nomination (There Will Be Blood should have been the first). His co-star Michelle Williams received an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Mitzi Fabelman. Williams gives a fantastic performance. Her character has depth, but in my opinion, she doesn’t have as rich an arc as Burt Fabelman. In the early part of the movie, she tells her son, “Movies are dreams, dolly. Where you never wake up.” In her final scene, she tells him, “You do what your heart wants.” I love some good bookends, but in this case, it shows that the character doesn’t change much throughout the film. Burt Fabelman does. The Academy should have recognized Dano’s range in the role.

Burt Fabelman is based on Steven Spielberg’s father, Arnold. Arnold divorced Steven’s mother, Leah Adler, in 1965. You can find photos online of Arnold and Leah during their marriage. Paul Dano and Michelle Williams nailed the looks. Both Arnold and Leah remarried. It took Arnold more than thirty years to marry his second wife. He’s living proof that you can find love at any age. All I’m saying is that if I were born in the 1910s or 1920s and lived in the world of The Fabelmans, I’d have jumped at the chance for a late-in-life romance with Burt Fabelman.

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