Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Python Hyena Fairy Tale: A True Story (1997): Dir: Charles Sturridge / Cast: Florence Hoath, Elizabeth Earl, Harvey Keitel, Peter O'Toole, Bill Nighy: Fascinating themes aimed at the wrong audience. It brings elements of fantasy and enters it into present day. Two girls get snap shots of fairies in the wilderness, which gives them unwanted media attention. Good concept with little information about the fairies. They do not appear until the end of the film, which may ruin it for its intended audience. Directed by Charles Sturridge who previously made Aria. He is backed with beautiful photography and visual elements. Florence Hoath and Elizabeth Earl make a fine pairing as two carefree girls who happen upon the extraordinary and are suddenly thrust into media spotlight. Unfortunately Harvey Keitel as Harry Houdini serves little purpose. One could say that the character references the magic or fantasy elements but in his own film the Houdini character would flourish. Here he is a bad distraction. Peter O'Toole also makes an appearance but he never makes an impact. The special effects are the sell and that element works well, particularly when the fairies finally make an appearance in all their glory. Theme of media manipulation allows the film a documentary appeal but since the film has more adult appeal than for children it leaves the biggest tale told by the filmmakers. Score: 6 / 10

kgny309 When it comes to family movies, it has to be thoughtful, entertaining and capable enough to hold on to the audience between age 1 and 101. "Fairy Tale: A True Story" takes that challenge and it really succeeds.In 1917 England, two girls, Elsie {Florence Hoath} and her cousin Frances {Elizabeth Earl} discover real fairies in a garden. Later, they take photographs to give proof that the fairies are real. Soon, they become famous when Arthur Conan Doyle {Peter O'Toole} publishes the photos in Strand magazine."Fairy Tale" has the conflict of Human vs. Fantasy. The conflict connects with the film's theme, which is you must believe it unless you see the real thing. The center of the film's story is Elsie and Frances. They're two girls who really see things as it happen. They grab our attention along with the story.Ernie Contreras's unpredictable script makes the characters feel as human beings, not as cardboard people. There's even a cliché in the film with a reporter trying to get the real story behind the photographs, but it never gets annoying. Plus, there's a subplot with Frances's missing father which is handled well.Hoath and Earl each give fine performances. The supporting roles are handled nicely with O'Toole as Doyle and Harvey Keitel as magician Harry Houdini.Zbigniew Preisner's score gives a dreamy feel to the proceedings and Shirley Russell's World War period costumes are luscious.Delightfully photographed and wonderfully acted, Charles Sturridge's film is a charming, perfect and winning family film. This is a movie come true for all ages.Rating: ****

jjhan2 I'd seen this film on DVD when it first came to the States,I saw it again last weekend on TV. I'd forgotten how much I loved it, I'm so glad I saw it again. It was so moving, I felt I wanted to believe in fairies and after seeing this film and the websites with pictures of them, who's to say there aren't any? I recommend this film to anyone, just keep an open mind and a box of tissues handy. The girls are so sweet, if only children were like that today, we would be so lucky! Harvey Keitel was a bit hard to believe as Houdini but he wasn't terrible and Peter O'Toole was wonderful as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The mother and father were just the ticket, I believed their performances entirely. If only we could make a film as lovely as this.

Howard Schumann In Gilstead Crags, England it is said that there is an opening in the rocks known as "Fairies Hole" in which tiny creatures dance in the moonlight and can be heard miles away clanging musical tongs. When we were young, many of us loved stories about elves, goblins, fairies, and sprites in which children braved the unknown. When we got older, however, many became preoccupied with school, job, marriage, or children and never again dipped into the "deeper, darker landscapes". Of course when no one is looking, we may secretly revisit tales from our childhood such as Rip Van Winkle or films like The Wizard of Oz or Darby O'Gill and the Little People. One of the most enchanting of this genre is Charles Sturridge's delightful adventure fantasy Fairy Tale: A True Story.Fairy Tale/] is a film about nature spirits known as devas, elementals, or fairies and is based on actual events that took place in Yorkshire, England in 1917 in which two young girls claimed to have seen and photographed fairies in the woods near their home in Cottingley Beck. The ensuing debate about the authenticity of the photos sparked a national controversy that pit spiritualists against skeptics and involved such people as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and famed magician Harry Houdini.The story begins when Frances Griffiths (Elizabeth Earl) comes to England from South Africa to live with her uncle Arthur Wright (Paul McGann), her aunt Polly (Phobe Nicholls), and their daughter Elsie (Florence Hoath). Frances' father is missing in action in the war and Elsie has just lost her eleven-year old brother Joseph from pneumonia. Apparently, Elsie and her brother shared a belief in fairies and Joseph's room is filled with drawings of the barely five inch high winged creatures and an unfinished house for the little people. Frances and Elsie borrow Uncle Arthur's camera and take a photograph of the fairies they see in the woods and the photograph eventually ends up in the hands of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Peter O'Toole) who persuades the girls to take four more shots.Sir Arthur, a Spiritualist, believes the photos are real as does Polly, a member of the Theosophist Society, and enlists photographic expert Harold Snelling to test them. Snelling concludes that the dancing figures are not made of paper or any fabric, are not painted on a photographic background, and that all the figures appear to be blurred as if the exposure had caught them moving in their dance. Doyle even involves the famous magician Harry Houdini (Harvey Keitel) who is basically a disbeliever in things supernatural. Both men visit the girls and publish the photos in a magazine called The Strand which brings hundreds of curiosity seekers and journalists to the area in which the fairies were seen. A journalist is convinced that the photographs are faked and sneaks into Joseph's bedroom to try and prove it but is met by a curious visitor.Whether you believe in fairies or not, Fairy Tale: A True Story rekindles a sense of wonder at the infinite mystery of life and the joy evident on the faces of the girls in the film's luminous ending seeps quietly into our hearts. Unfortunately, the film fails to inform us that the girls, interviewed in 1982 for an article in The Unexplained, confessed that the photos were hoaxes, cardboard cutouts pinned to the ground with a hatpin. Francis maintained, however, that one of the five pictures was real and stated in her last interview in 1986 that both she and Elsie saw the fairies and believed very strongly in them.She said that, "The first time I ever saw anything was when a willow leaf started shaking violently, even though there was no wind, I saw a small man standing on a branch, with the stem of the leaf in his hand, which he seemed to be shaking at something. He was dressed all in green." Whatever the truth may be, there is even to this day still a strong belief in fairies around the Cottingley area and, after seeing Fairy Tale: A True Story, some of us may believe in the possibility as well.