Trailer
Plot summary
Frances Griffiths travels by train to rural Bradford, West Yorkshire, to live with the family of her cousin Elsie Wright while her father is missing in action. Elsie's mother Polly mourns her son Joseph, a gifted artist who died at ten, and keeps his room untouched. In Elsie's garret sits the fairy house Joseph left unfinished, and Elsie's father Arthur, who electrified the local mill, tells her fairy tales. The two girls share a fascination with the fairies they meet at the beck, and one afternoon they borrow Arthur's camera to photograph them.
Cast
- Elizabeth Earlas Frances Griffiths
- Lara Morganas Jean Doyle
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about FairyTale: A True Story (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was commissioned by the Strand Magazine in 1920 to write an article on fairies and first heard of the Cottingley Fairies while preparing it; in 1922 he published The Coming of the Fairies.
- Magician Harry Houdini publicly exposed the many fraudulent mediums he discovered during his own search for a genuine medium who could help him communicate with his late mother.
- The film was produced by Mel Gibson's production company Icon Productions, and Gibson himself turns up in an uncredited cameo as Frances' father.
- It is loosely based on the story of the Cottingley Fairies, and follows two children in 1917 England who take a photograph soon believed to be the first scientific evidence of the existence of fairies.
