This is a engaging, touching, and entertaining film, very well acted, and visually beautiful. Sure, Spielberg was being a bit self-indulgent making a film loosely based on his childhood, and he softened the edges of the character based on his mother. But it is his best effort in years, a wonderful piece of art. Thumbs up, 4.5/5 stars. However I had trouble getting past the fact that young Sammy was played by an actor with very blue eyes, while teenage Sammy (last 80% of the movie) had dark brown eyes. Where were the continuity folks? Contact lenses? Was it intentional? Did they just not think it mattered? Definitely both of these actors gave excellent performances; I hope to see Gabriel LaBelle nominated for an Oscar. But this switch was startling and made no sense. It seemed an odd and huge glitch in an otherwise near-perfect film.