User Reviews

The film beautifully captures the history of the LGBTQ community in San Francisco. Emilia Jones, plays the teenage Alysia and gives a heartfelt understated performance. Highly recommend.

A very San Francisco movie, with a genuine feel for the boho cheap rent life of the 1970s & 80s. Honestly earns a few tears without jerking them.

Fairyland is an honest, real movie about people living big lives during tumultuous times, and coming through damaged but wiser.

"She has a real family" Steve Abbott As the daughter **** man who died of AIDS complications, I was on a lonely journey for years to find anyone like me, his whole community wiped out by a plaque. It was 2014 when I was pointed in the direction of a memoir called Fairyland! Wait what?! "It's time to go to Fairyland" my mother would say in a sarcastic voice as she readied us for weekends with my dad after their divorce, not hiding her resentment for his care free life. I was so excited, there was someone out there who knew this life! The book captured everything I was missing, the sounds, the smells, the people in my dad's life and the many conversations that mirrored our own. I waited 10 long years to for this film to be released. I first saw it at the Pride Film Festival at the Castro theater and I was blown away! From the opening scene I was catapulted back to a world that I loved so much that really doesn't exist anymore. As the story unfolded I melted into my seat and felt every feeling of growing with my father and his friends and then the crushing claws of death as one by one his friends, my collective daddys, began to die my father the last to go. Creating a scar so deep it still bleeds today. The film captures all of the nuances of that time with perfection. Finally people will get a glimpse of what it was like for many of us who grew up in a time filled with secrets, unending love and tragedy. That yes our gay dads were, in fact, a real family. I have seen it twice and I will be seeing it again today, I cannot get enough! Bring your tissues!

I stumbled upon Fairyland by Alysia Abbott about ten years ago. I’ve lugged the book around to many a New York apartment. Both the memoir and the film embody a tender storytelling that give younger generations a precious way to inherit our LGBTQ+ history. The film adaptation beautifully translates the love and the profound heartbreak of Fairyland-- these delicate moments in time. Gen Z and Millennial LGBTQ+ fam- it is a must see! Steve and Alysia Abbott's story is an important part of our history. It is a profound gift to know their tale.

A beautifully filmed,sharply written adaptation of Abbott’s acclaimed memoir. This is a tender and nostalgic film about the 70s and 80s in San Francisco, with standout performances from Emilia Jones and especially Scoot McNairy.