Scoot McNairy and Emilia Jones headline writer-director Andrew Durham's adaptation of Alysia Abbott's memoir, which teeters here and there throughout its 15-year timeline but hits the heart in the right place.
Stories about the gay heyday of the 1970s in San Francisco, and the cruel persecutor of the AIDS crisis in the decade that followed, are often based on the notion of chosen family within the queer community: the bonds that are formed when prejudices cut blood ties. Studies of the biological family, and especially fatherhood, in that context are more unusual, which is what makes Alysia Abbott's book "Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father" so moving. An account of her upbringing by a gay single father in the midst of the LGBTQ liberation movement, and her subsequent care for him through AIDS, balances an eager acceptance of countercultural life with the gaze of a child with the melancholy of a older woman for things unsaid or badly said. In "Fairyland," Andrew Durham adapts his story with warmth and sensitivity, though those perspectives come together more fluidly on the page than on the screen.
Director: Andrew Durham
Writer: Andrew Durham
Stars: Emilia Jones, Scoot McNairy, Geena Davis
A photographer making his feature film debut as a writer-director, Durham initially pursues a vaguely impressionistic style influenced by producer Sofia Coppola, before turning to a more standard, dialogue-heavy storytelling as his young female lead approaches adulthood. . This tonal and aesthetic shift marks not just a coming of age, but the passing of a freer, bohemian era, though it leaves “Fairyland” feeling a bit unbalanced. There is an unforced authenticity to his portrayal of broken early childhood that is at odds with his later, more melodramatic depiction of the war between father and daughter, even if his harrowing tactics are undeniably effective. That it hits on both registers is due to a performance of easy-going, good-tempered grace from Scoot McNairy, as a father going through his own journey of growing up, a blossoming followed by an all-too-sudden wilting, over two decades.
In his introductory scenes, set in 1974, Durham relies on his audience to fill in certain blanks, as we sense personal histories and nuances of relationships amid script elisions and the gathering shadows of the camera's lovely, dazed 16mm lens. cinematographer Greta Zozula. As we begin with scuzzy Midwestern writer Steve (McNairy) receiving a late-night call that his wife Barbara has died in a car accident, we receive information at about the same rate as his young daughter Alysia. Much of his internalized grief, he follows the interrupted flow of life, not resisting when Steve, against the wishes of his starchy mother-in-law, decides they should pack up his orange VW Beetle, move west, and start anew. .
Arriving at a dilapidated San Francisco share house dominated by the wacky drug dealer Paulette, Alysia is initially taken aback by the wonderful surroundings of her new home, but soon adjusts and makes friends with the other roommates: the gender queer Johnny and especially guitar-playing hipster Eddie, who Steve also bangs around with. establish a relationship. Alysia is young and naive enough not to ask questions when, in a subtly and beautifully observed scene, she finds the two men in bed together: she simply snuggles into her father, accepting whatever new family unit comes along. I present to you
Eddie doesn't stay, and neither does a succession of boyfriends, as Steve begins to live openly as a gay man. However, queerness becomes an unremarkable part of Alysia's home life. “This isn't the summer of love anymore,” says Pauletta, but as Zozula's camera weaves and soars through the sunlit masses at a Gay Pride parade, reflecting the young woman's beatific gaze, you might think otherwise.
That innocence doesn't last, and neither does that acceptance. As we flash forward in time to the mid-'80s, Steve's sexuality has become a source of embarrassment, even embarrassment, for Alysia, now a New Wave high school sophomore played by an anxious, pinched Emily Jones. The lens grows sharper and grayer as the mood sours as well: Steve, now a veteran of the city's poetic scene, still goes out and dances, but whispers of an unknown virus signal the beginning of the end. He struggles to communicate with his daughter, whose standard adolescent sulking is further aggravated by questions about her parents that he never thought to ask her before.
Watch Fairyland 2023 Movie Trailer
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