Fairyland, the screen adaptation of Alysia Abbott’s memoir of growing up with a gay dad in San Francisco during the 70s and 80s has finally hit theaters. I eagerly awaited this film as that time and place means a lot to me. As a kid from small town Ohio, I have vivid memories of seeing the Castro District and its sizable LGBTQ community for the first time. After moving to Los Angeles as a young adult, I’d visit frequently and witness the devastating impact that AIDS had and continues to have on its beautiful people. Since that time, we’ve had many films about the pandemic. Some have dismissed them as oversaturated or passé, but I maintain we’ve not fully mined the countless stories from this period. With Fairyland, I applaud the originality of plunking us down in this setting from a young girl’s point of view, yet something about this approach nagged at me. It took me a few days afterwards to figure out why writer-director Andrew Durham’s feature debut didn’t completely work for me.
Upon the death of her mother, Alysia, played as a young girl by the remarkable Nessa Dougherty, sets off for 1970s San Francisco with her father Steve, Scoot McNairy (A Complete Unknown), against the objections of her grandmother Munca (Geena Davis). She senses Steve’s shortcomings, setting us up for a custody battle which never quite materializes. You see, Alysia will soon discover Dad is ready to spread his wings in the gay mecca. We stay mostly with Alysia, who feels neglected, as Steve entrenches himself into the scene. He moves from boyfriend to boyfriend with Cody Fern’s Eddie a delightful highlight. An almost unrecognizable Adam Lambert also shows up as a sweet, funny love interest. Alysia and Steve live in a crowded Haight Asbury apartment presided over by Paulette, another standout, quirky as hell performance by the wonderful Maria Bakalova. Think a young Mrs. Madrigal from Tales Of The City, but with a Bulgarian accent.
Often left at home alone while Steve gallivants from one adventure after another, we see the toll it takes on Alysia. A time jump to the early 80s, with Alysia now played as a teenager by Emilia Jones (so fantastic in CODA and the HBO series Task), finds her an embittered, angry, full Goth Era young woman. As commanding a screen presence as Jones is, and she’s subtle and memorable here, by this point I couldn’t help but feeling that all the good stuff was happening off camera. Yes, the film, just like the novel, honors this unique perspective, but, in all honesty, staying with the character who feels left out can wear thin compared to watching Dad have all the fun. We even follow Alysia overseas for a period of time while on a college exchange program while the stakes have raised significantly for Steve. Watching a nascent gay man navigate a tumultuous time in history seems far more compelling to me than witnessing Alysia think negative thoughts about her absent father while she rides bicycles and courts a young, albeit very sexy, French guy. I wanted a little more Taxi Zum Klo and a little less Under The Tuscan Sun, if you catch my drift.
Now don’t get me wrong, Fairyland is a lovely film. Its cinematographer, Greta Zozula, provides one dreamy image after another, perhaps influenced by the film’s producer, Sofia Coppola. Michael Penn’s spare, fragile piano-based score also contributes to the spell the film casts. McNairy, an actor so good at playing neutered men such as his roles in Nightbitch and Speak No Evil, finds a quiet, heartbreaking dignity to his character, perhaps his finest performance to date. In the final act, he could have easily overplayed the scenes, but instead he draws you in with his unforced stillness. Jones matches him here, making me wish we could have seen them together even more.
It feels wrong to criticize a film for its rarely seen point of view, when we have so many examples of films centering gay men during this period. Yet, it often feels sanitized and a tad maudlin, when we could have had something sexier and more thrilling. Still, I respect that the filmmakers stayed true to the memoir and made the movie they wanted to make. A sweet, lovely tearjerker for sure, Fairyland, if you’ll pardon the lousy pun, could have used more fairy dust.
By Glenn Gaylord, Senior Film Critic
Fairyland is currently in theaters.
For more film reviews by Glenn Gaylord subscribe to his new YouTube channel here ——> GLENN HATES EVERYTHING
Leave a Reply