Don't get caught up in the title and the basis of the story, its just a movie but one worth watching. The photography and acting are good enough to pull you out of your reality momentarily and into this fantasy world if you let it. The real plot of the movie is innocents believing in something that the common adult mired in fear can't believe and so wants to expose things that challenge their safe reality as fraud or delusions. However, adults who can look beyond their own fear of the unexplained and embrace the wondrous diversity of life beyond what our senses can explain and with respect, can open new realities and new understanding. They have faith and vision and live in a world were thought becomes reality, through respect for all things, and believe in the joy of creation and discovery.

Fairytale A True Story tells the real life story of two cousins Elsie Wright(Florence Hoath)and Frances Griffiths(Elizabeth Earl)who in 1917 took some pictures that captivated the world and had England divided in discussion of their authenticity.Even more attention was drawn to the cousins and their home when two very high profile and well known figures took an interest.They are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle(Peter O'Toole)the author best known for creating the character of Sherlock Holmes and his close friend the illusionist Harry Houdini(Harvey Keitel).Conan Doyle believes the photos are genuine whereas Houdini is a little more sceptical.However tests on the photos proved that there had been no photographic trickery involved.To this day people are still divided about whether they are pictures of real fairies or a clever and very impressive hoax.With a great cast including Paul MGann as Elsie's father and Phoebe Nicholls as her mother who are grieving for their dead son(who claimed to have seen the fairies as well)moving and uplifting this is well worth watching.

Everyone who's deeply interested in folklore, as I dare to say I am, knows the story of the Fairies of Cottingley, it's one nearly-epic story of the two girls who inadvertently made a half of the world actually believe in magical creatures (I don't count children, for they did, they do and they will believe, and that's wondrous), and the best part of the epic is that they had never straightforwardly confessed that they've forged it just not to ruin people's glimpse of faith in magical.If that's what this movie should have been telling about then it certainly does not the job. Despite the wonderful and believable acting of Florence Hoath and Elizabeth Earl, the incoherent screenplay and direction ruin everything and only a shadow of the childhood magic remains in the dark corner pushed away by the social-drama clichés (they even managed to insert there a villain and the goddammit comic relief!). And the top-notch CGI doesn't help out. There's more magic even in ghost-story movies, such as 'Lady in White' or 'The Changeling'. Worth watching, but only once. I deeply hope that some day someone will make a movie worthy of this story's spiritual background, so you'd understand why some perfectly sane people believe in fairies, even without the photographs.One of my favorite books is the collection of narrative tales, recorded in the middle of the 20th century among the Siberian villagers, mostly in the Chita region, by V.P. Zinovyev, and the thing I really love and adore in those stories is that those people actually believe all the folklore things they're speaking about! It's grievous that there are less and less such people live in this world, of that kind who believe because of the purity of the heart, not because of fear or passion. Some call those people dark and unenlightened, some laugh at them, but the thing they actually have is the faith, whilst everyone else have only a ghost of it. That who knows cannot believe.

Fairy Tale: A True STory (1997): Starring Phoebe Nicholls, Florence Hoath, Harvey Keitel, Peter O'Toole, Jason Salkey, Lara Morgan, Adam Franks, Guy Witcher, John Bradley, Joseph May, Anna Chancellor, Elizabeth Earl, Paul McGann, Bob Peck, Anton Lesser, Lyn Farleigh, Sarah Marsden, Tara Marie, Alannah McGahan, Bill Nighy, Jim Wiggins, Anthony Calf, John Grillo, Benjamin Whitrow, David Norman, Matilda Sturridge, Charlotte Champness, Stuart Howson, James Danaher, Isabel Rocamora Suzy Barton, Ali Bastion, Sean Buckley, Lindsey Butcher, Norma Cohen, Matt Costain, Sophie Griffiths, Tara Kemp, Caleb Lloyd, Marianne Melhus, Genevieve Monastesse, Mark Tate.. Director Charles Sturridge, Screenplay Albert Ash, Tom McLoughlin, Ernie Contreras.This British film from director Charles Sturridge, released in 1997, coincided with the release of the similar independent film "Photographing Fairies". This is the true story of the 1917-1918 headline-making incident in which two British girls (played by Phoebe Nichols and Florence Hoath) claimed they saw fairies in the grounds of their father's country home and went as far as photographing the fairies. The photographs of the fairies are world-famous. The girls and their experience with the fairies captivated the imagination and the interest of almost everyone, including the legendary escape artist/magician Harry Houdini (portrayed in the film by Harvey Keitel) and the novelist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Peter O'Toole). The girls' father is reported missing in action in Europe during World War I and their apparent grief seems to be, in one level, the explanation for their spiritual encounter with fairies. The non-believers accused the girls and the adults who cared for them of producing the photos themselves through camera tricks as part of an elaborate hoax. The world of spirit and the world of humans interact in this warm, touching film whose theme is that of faith and the nature of faith. But far from focusing on the is it real or not (does Santa Claus exist, do angels exist ?) question, it seems to be more about a world that desperately needs magic, healing and hope. True to history, this time period (the world during WWI) was full of conflict and it was dark. Nations were at war. Old superstitions and beliefs took a backseat to the emerging science and progressive technology- cars, telephones, fast trains, ships, etc). The fairies came at the right time. This was also a time of spirituality and magic. Not only did people's interest in fairies, angels, ghosts and the paranormal/occult begin to arise, but people claimed to communicate with such spiritual entities. While the film leans toward the idea that fairies do exist . Through computer enhanced imagery, we see the fairies soaring about and playing in the countryside and the Fairy Queen Mab (Isabel Rocamora) intervenes to help bring back the girl's father. Surprise, surprise, he is played in a brief one final scene cameo by none other than Mel Gibson. This is a gorgeous, moving film with a lot of heart, intelligence, charm and spirit. The music is lovely, a sort of neoromantic creation that pays tribute to Felix Mendelssohn who wrote incidental music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which features fairies. The exquisite cinematography is by Michael Coulter who gives us great shots of the English countryside, a great contrast to the bleak, dismal hospital scenes in London. Also, we are treated to the theatrical/entertainment scene of this time, which was mostly theater. Sarah Bernhart was performing her last plays and plays like James Berry's Peter Pan as seen in the film were indeed part of theater repertoire. Not to mention Harry Houdini who was astounding the world with his death-defying feats of escape and illusion. This is a wonderful film that you are sure to enjoy. Nevertheless, despite the title, it is actually more of an adult's film because children may have trouble following the well-crafted dialog and plot and would not be familiar with the historical references.