The world is at war and the people are unsettled. Francis’s family has been hit particularly hard with the death of their son, and her parents are walking shells of their former selves, not seeming to recognize that she’s in pain, too. When her cousin Elsie comes to stay, they take comfort in the craziness of the world around them by talking about fairies. They come in from the garden with wild stories of how they saw the fairies and spoke to them, but Francis’s parents don’t want to listen. Until one day, that is, when the girls steal the family camera and take it out to the woods, then claim to have taken pictures of the fairies.
The father develops the film and is amazed at what he sees. Sure enough, his daughter appears to be posing with fairies. He takes the picture to a photographic expert who says the picture is genuine and has not been retouched in any way.
Soon, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle catches word of this discovery. He wants to meet with the little girls. If fairies exist, then perhaps the other mystical things of the world exist too, and perhaps there really is a heaven where his soldier son now waits for him. He comes to the home, examines the pictures, and writes a whole feature on the girls and their fairies. Meanwhile, Francis’s mother has hope in her eyes like she hasn’t in some time.
This movie shows how just a little bit of hope can make all the difference in a life torn apart by grief, and how sometimes it doesn’t take a lot to bring about that hope. It was beautifully filmed and acted throughout. It was touted as being a family film, which would lead one to believe that it’s light and funny, but instead, it’s deeply moving and introspective. You certainly can and should show it to your children, but it’s not the typical entertainment usually marketed to young children. This film was rated PG.
Additional information: Throughout their entire lives, the two girls insisted that the pictures were real. However, right before her death, Elsie admitted that they had been faked. The girls had used illustrations of fairies and mounted them on pins. They didn’t want to let the truth leak out – so many people were counting on those fairy pictures to be real. However, they did maintain that they had indeed seen those fairies in real life. You can see the original pictures of the fairies by clicking here.
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