FAIRYTALE: A TRUE STORY
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: This fanciful retelling of a historic
incident is too slow and dour and offers too little
for the eye of a younger child and it is a bit
patronizing for adults. Still, its study of why
people believe what they do will play better on an
adult audience than a children's matinee. Two
school-girls create a sensation by apparently
photographing fairies in their garden. The film
does a nice job of creating little people with
dragonfly wings to come down on the side of
claiming that the fairies were real. Rating: +1
(-4 to +4), 6 (0 to 10)
When Richard Adams wrote WATERSHIP DOWN it was not really clear who his audience would be. The story seemed too violent for children and a tale of rabbits looking for a safe warren seemed a little puerile for adults. It was a difficult task for Adams to get it published, but once it was it remained a bestseller for years. That book notwithstanding, it is a good idea to know when you are telling a story whom you expect to be your audience. FAIRYTALE: A TRUE STORY is a film that was made without too much thought as to who its audience would be. As a result it is too slow and deliberate to be a children's film and it is a bit too logically inconsistent to work well for adults. The story tells of how two young girls during World War I produced what they claimed to be authentic photographs of fairies in an English country garden. At the time, the story caused quite a sensation. Notables including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini investigated the claims and Doyle became convinced. FAIRYTALE: A TRUE STORY is a fictionalized account of what happened told from the point of view that the fairies were real. To claim this to be a true story and to have special effects fairies flitting around seems less than strictly honest, though I suppose the filmmakers are taking the viewpoint of believers.
It is a miserable time in 1917 England, with men returning from the war having been shot to pieces in battle. Nine-year old South African Frances Griffiths (played by Elizabeth Earl) lost her father in the war and comes to England to stay with her twelve-year old cousin Elsie Wright (Florence Hoath). [Historical note: the actual children's ages were ten and sixteen respectively according to one source. However, the "true" story plays better if they are younger.] Elsie is also mourning a recent loss, that of her older brother. The two girls, shown here as almost being too storybook perfect, build a bond of friendship. Then one day when playing in the garden, Frances sees a fairy. The fairies will not let themselves be seen by adults, but Frances and Elsie determine to prove the presence of the fairies by borrowing Elsie's father's camera and taking a picture. That is just what they do and resulting photographs cause a sensation. Peter O'Toole plays Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the hard-nosed skeptic Sherlock Holmes, who nevertheless is ready to accept the photographs as real. He calls in master illusionist and debunker Harry Houdini (played very nicely by Harvey Keitel).
If one looks for it there is some material that is worth considering in the film. The story offers us a variety of people in varying degrees of belief or skepticism and we can see their motivations for their degree of belief. Generally it is the people who have been most injured by reality who are willing to turn from that reality and embrace the fanciful. Faith also works better on children than adults in the film. And the film seems very accepting of skepticism. The most sympathetic adult character is Keitel's Harry Houdini. O'Toole, on the other hand, is not well-cast as Doyle. Physically he is wrong to play the short and plumpish writer. His character seems too anxious to convince others to believe in the supernatural, at one point even saying to be skeptical is to show disrespect to him.
But where the film is unsettling is in the question of whether the photographs are genuine or not. Certainly the film shows you fairies, so it really says that they are real. But the photos are the historic originals or very good facsimiles and while we do not get much chance to look at them on the wide screen, the originals clearly are fakes. (Sorry, Sir Arthur.) It does not take much examination of the original photographs to conclude that the fairies shown are drawn by hand rather than photographed from life. The film suggests that may be the case also, but never ties that end up. Of course, there are many ends not tied up in this film and left for the viewer to decide. The level of storytelling is confusing and will be more so for children. The telling of the story is a little muddled and not helped by thick accents occasionally obscuring the dialog. Often parallel action is inter-cut and one time they add a chess game that seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the story, but they inter-cut it with two pieces of inter-cut action to create a third one.
Some script problems and editing problems damage this well- photographed and acted story of the Cottingly Fairies. It could have been a lot better and rates a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1997 Mark R. Leeper
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