Based on a "true" event that occurred in 1917, this is a sweet little story that unfortunately will probably prove more enjoyable for parents to watch than for their kids. Those looking for the opposite of the standard "Home Alone" type of entertainment usually thrown out to children, however, need look no farther than this period film. There are no out of control kids, no zany slapstick, and essentially no silly characters. Not so surprisingly, though, that may be the film's undoing as today's kids are used to that type of stimulus and this film might just come across as too stuffy and adult-based for their liking. The targeted audience is also rather narrow, with the material probably too mature looking for preschoolers to understand, while older kids will think the subject's too immature for them. With many boys probably not wanting to see a film about fairies, that pretty much leaves us with an audience of ten-year-old and under girls. That isn't meant to sound like sexual stereotyping, it's just the way it is.
Beyond the film's historical period look that most kids won't appreciate, the movie is hurt the most by the near absence of what the kids have come to see, and that's the fairies. While there are a few scenes with them, they essentially come off as nothing more than strange looking dragonflies and the kids (in the audience) never get to meet them. We do get to see them fly around in a nicely done, special effects laden scene where they zip around the house, but that comes too late in the movie -- it's almost a desperate attempt to make everyone happy before the end credits role. The film makers need to understand that kids want to identify with the fairies as characters, to know something about them, but this film treats the little "people" just like a bunch of specialized insects. While the girls in the film call out to them by name, we never meet them, and they're in such few scenes that kids in our screening got rather restless at times. Add to that a few darkly lit, mysterious scenes where other preschool kids in our audience were scared, and this might not be the best film for such young kids.
For the adults in the audience, the film comes off as okay entertainment. Much of it focuses on skeptics questioning whether the pictures have been doctored -- a quaint notion considering the time setting. We also get to see the characters' amazed reactions at seeing those images. Today's audiences, especially kids, will find this boring since they live in a world where unbelievable computer generated visuals pop off the theater or TV screen at the drop of a hat. Noted historical figures Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini are present and add some interest, but too much time is focused on them. While I don't claim to know much about the real incident this film's based on, or whether these two men were as actively involved as portrayed, but their time on screen lessens that where the fairies should be instead. O'Toole and Keitel are decent in their portrayals of these men, but their larger than life personas detract our attention. I suppose Houdini's there as the professional skeptic and in real life he often debunked psychics and others trying to take advantage of the unsuspecting masses. As he says in this film, though, the girls aren't trying to make a buck from their find, and thus he leaves them alone. Still, that's an awful lot of time spent with him for nothing to happen. True, they should keep those characters in the story if they were really there. That's never stopped film makers from taking artistic license with the truth, though, and a parring down of their presence would have helped the film.
Newcomers Florence Hoath and Elizabeth Earl are entirely believable in their roles and pleasant to watch, but they, like the fairies, suffer from a lack of time on screen. The story's about them and the fairies and we want to see more of their interaction. All of this is too bad, for they could have fashioned this pleasant little film more to captivate the audience it's geared for, instead of the parents in the crowd. If the film makers had intended this to be an adult look at this true-life story that would have been fine, but one gets the feeling that director Charles Sturridge and screenwriter Ernie Contreras are trying to straddle the fence and please everyone, and the film never manages to impress either kids or their parents adequately. There's not much that's really structurally wrong with the movie, it just doesn't have enough material for kids to keep them entertained. For that reason, we give "Fairy Tale: A True Story" -- a film that should be heading to video stores rather quickly -- a 6 out of 10.