"A quiet beauty permeates almost every moment of the San Francisco-based new movie Fairyland. The movie begins with 5-year-old Alysia (Nessa Dougherty) learning of her mother's sudden death by car accident. In short order, her sensitive scruff-bag dad Steve (Scoot McNairy) moves them to San Francisco, in a shared Haight-Ashbury apartment. Thanks to their three flamboyant, hard-partying roommates, Alysia's new home is often filled with smoke, liquor, music, drag queens and a liberal sprinkling of LSD."
"That realism is only enhanced by the movie's depiction of San Francisco. The turbulent politics of the '70s are worked into the background via morning radio news programs that play as Steve and Alysia get ready for the day. Archival footage of the city's streets, people and events is collaged into the movie at various stages. The graininess of the old blends just fine with the new, due the analog tone Durham has given the movie."
"Emilia Jones (currently killing it as Maeve in HBO Max's Task) more than holds her own as the adolescent Alysia. This Alysia is a confident, defiant young woman desperately seeking a path separate from her father's. Jones powerfully conveys Alysia's struggle of hiding Steve's sexuality from her high school friends in the '80s, her resentment about being left to her own devices as a child, and the desperate desire to forge her own identity."
Fairyland opens with five-year-old Alysia learning of her mother's sudden death and relocating with her sensitive, scruff-bag father Steve to a shared Haight-Ashbury apartment. The household life includes flamboyant, hard-partying roommates, drag queens, and frequent drug and alcohol use. The film weaves 1970s political turbulence into the background through radio news and collaged archival footage, creating an analog, grainy texture. Emilia Jones portrays an adolescent Alysia wrestling with identity, secrecy about Steve's sexuality, and childhood resentment. Scoot McNairy embodies a flawed but captivating father whose uneven parenting culminates in a powerful final act.
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