Parenthood is no easier than growing pains, particularly if you’re trying to wrangle it single-handed while fronting up for the nascent queer rights movement and, eventually, facing down the oncoming plague that terrifyingly crashed the party. That’s the heartsore beauty of Fairyland, the promising debut feature of Australian writer/director Andrew Durham. Produced by Sofia Coppola, it touchingly portrays the real-life events relayed in Alysia Abbott’s 2013 memoir of the same name.
When Alysia's (portrayed here by precociously adorable newcomer Nessa Dougherty) mum was killed in a tragic accident while she was still a little kid, her handsome father Steve (Argo star Scoot McNairy) decamped with her from the snoozy Midwest to the golden land of free love that was San Francisco in the Armistead Maupin ‘70s era, much to the chagrin of her gran (a welcome appearance by Geena Davis). Telling Alysia that he could never replace her mother – not quite the full story – he throws himself into a whirlwind of flings with men, including guitar-playing Eddie (Cody Fern) and biker jacket-sporting Charlie (Queen frontman Adam Lambert).
Hunkering down in a hippy dip house-share scenario with shades of Tales of the City’s logical family, drag artist Johnny (Ryan Thurston), Eddie and dope-dispensing Earth Mumma Paulette, played by Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Maria Bakalova, sprinkle a little faerie dust into Alysia’s rapidly opening eyes. But the latter’s announcement that the Summer of Love is over augurs bad trips ahead.
This is an HIV/AIDS crisis film, but one that’s not hooked on the spectre of death, though its unimaginable shadow falls over the final act. Centred on the certainly loving fatherhood of a nevertheless hornily distracted Steve, his latchkey absences become increasingly distressing for Alysia once they get their own joint. CODA breakout Emilia Jones steps into her shoes in the latter half of the film, now set in the ‘80s, with cinematographer Greta Zozula sadly switching from luminous 16mm to digital. Jones’ deft turn reckons with the fallout of Steve’s AWOL evenings that he insists were about building her independence. Again, not quite the whole truth.
McNairy is grand as Steve, allowing the party boy mask to slip just enough that we wrangle with his selfish streak. While Durham’s screenplay and direction occasionally veer into sentimentality, he manages to hold onto the less familiar, fascinating perspective of this impactful story. We haven’t seen enough parent/child takes on the tragedy of the HIV/AIDS crisis, with a notable exception being Designing Women TV showrunner Linda Bloodworth-Thomason’s glowing tribute to her mother, who died of AIDS, with the episode ‘Killing All the Right People’.
Dougherty and Jones are more than up to the task of breathing real life into Abbot’s memoir. If, like me, you wind up wishing Paulette had hung around longer, trust me, she’ll pretty much steal the film with an understated encore that will get your tears flowing before the credits roll.
'Fairyland' will screen at Kino Cinemas on August 8 and at the Comedy Theatre on August 18. You can book tickets to see the film on the MIFF website here.
