Fairytale: A True Story . Newcity Chicago . 10-27-97

Fairytale: A True Story

DIRECTED BY: Charles Sturridge

REVIEWED: 10-27-97

To see fairies, say the two schoolgirls in "Fairy Tale," you must believe. But it's never clear what is so unbelievable about "Fairy Tale" that prompted its makers to tag on the claim, "A True Story." Is it that two English schoolgirls took -- or doctored -- photographs of fairies during World War I? Or is it the uproar those photographs created after notables such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini entered the fray to determine the photos' authenticity? In fact, director Charles Sturridge's "Fairy Tale" doesn't ask the audience to accept anything especially extraordinary in Hollywood terms: What are a few fairies to moviegoers used to believing in Jurassic Park? The movie focuses on cousins Frances (Elizabeth Earl) and Elsie (Florence Hoath), who debate fairy lore in a night-lit attic bedroom, then spend their days at a small creek, playing with Queen Mab and her winged minions. Elsie's brother, Joseph, who dies of pneumonia before the film begins, spent his short life engulfed in fairies; his heartbroken parents, Arthur and Polly Wright (Paul McGann and Phoebe Nicholls), discourage serious-minded Elsie's pursuit of the little ones. But Polly desperately wants to believe, and mischievous Frances, staying with the family while her father fights in France, steals Arthur's camera to take photos of herself and Elsie cavorting with fairies as a gift to Elsie's mom. Eventually, Conan Doyle (Peter O'Toole) catches wind of the photos and enlists Houdini (Harvey Keitel), known for debunking false claims of theosophists and mediums, to investigate the girls' claims. Despite all this hoopla, though, the movie lacks dramatic focus. (Although the beautiful, recurring fairy-cam effects following a buzzing creature's flight through the florid woods by the brook and spying displaced fairies crossing a busy road, recall the floating feather at the beginning of "Forrest Gump.") The diffuseness defeats any hope of "Fairy Tale" attaining the child-adult crossover appeal of "The Little Mermaid" or "Babe." The result is a patchwork quilt: children will cuddle in its magical moments, while the less wee might at times feel the temptation to visit the land of nod. 99m.

--Sam Jemielity

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Fairytale: A True Story

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Fairytale: A True Story
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