‘Fairyland’ Revisits the Joys and Tragedies of ’70s and ’80s San Francisco

A quiet beauty permeates almost every moment of the San Francisco-based new movie Fairyland.

Andrew Durham’s adaptation of Alysia Abbott’s 2013 memoir manages to thoughtfully honor the source material without getting bogged down by its scope. Durham’s movie carries a reverential tone throughout — for Alysia, for the city, and for those who endured the AIDS crisis throughout the 1980s and ’90s. It also bears mentioning that, by its end — even if you’ve read the book; even if you know what’s coming — Fairyland will emotionally dismantle you.

The movie begins with 5-year-old Alysia (Nessa Dougherty) learning of her mother’s sudden death by car accident. In short order, her sensitive scruff-bag dad Steve (Scoot McNairy) moves them to San Francisco, in a shared Haight-Ashbury apartment. Thanks to their three flamboyant, hard-partying roommates, Alysia’s new home is often filled with smoke, liquor, music, drag queens and a liberal sprinkling of LSD.

We see Alysia’s childhood as a loosely constructed entity, made of overheard snippets of grown-ups’ conversations, poet Steve’s laissez faire approach to child-rearing and a lack of explanations about anything happening around her. What keeps young Alysia grounded is not the private French-American school she attends, nor her loving but misguided grandmother, whom she calls “munca” (Geena Davis). It’s the inordinate amount of love she’s given from the many bohemian adults in her orbit.

As young Alysia, Nessa Dougherty — a San Francisco local herself — carries the first 45 minutes of Fairyland. The 11-year-old actor relays so much with her wide eyes, unsure body language and cynical pout that even her scenes without dialogue convey multitudes. Dougherty embodies the young Abbott fully — stoic, observant, curious, resolute, accepting.

That realism is only enhanced by the movie’s depiction of San Francisco. The turbulent politics of the ’70s are worked into the background via morning radio news programs that play as Steve and Alysia get ready for the day. Archival footage of the city’s streets, people and events is collaged into the movie at various stages. The graininess of the old blends just fine with the new, due to the analog tone Durham has given the movie. (The overall feel is not unlike what Fairyland producer Sofia Coppola did with The Virgin Suicides.)

San Franciscans will particularly enjoy the many nostalgic references. Teenaged Alysia dances with her friends at the Palladium in North Beach, while Steve parties at the EndUp. Steve reads his work to AIDS patients at the Maitri hospice. We see Alysia hanging around Wauzi Records — a nod to Oakland’s T’s Wauzi record store. Steve and Alysia’s happy place is Golden Gate Park’s Conservatory of Flowers. There’s even a Folsom Baths joke.

Emilia Jones (currently killing it as Maeve in HBO Max’s Task) more than holds her own as the adolescent Alysia. This Alysia is a confident, defiant young woman desperately seeking a path separate from her father’s. Jones powerfully conveys Alysia’s struggle of hiding Steve’s sexuality from her high school friends in the ’80s, her resentment about being left to her own devices as a child, and the desperate desire to forge her own identity.

Fairyland’s final act belongs to McNairy. For the entirety of the movie, the actor conveys Steve Abbott as a flawed but ultimately captivating man who tries to do his best as a father, but doesn’t always succeed. (Some of Fairyland’s best lines come from Steve’s slapdash approach to parenting. At one point, after young Alysia interrupts one of his dates and asks for a bedtime story, Steve shuffles her away saying, “Once upon a time there were three bears. Now there are thousands.”) McNairy’s performance in the film’s final 25 minutes becomes especially understated and heart-wrenching.

Fairyland is not a movie interested in forcing tears out of you; this film is never in the business of trying too hard. Aside from Fairyland’s excellent performances and attention to detail, its emotional weight comes from an unusual father-daughter story told candidly and with the kind of jagged rawness that often accompanies lives lived unconventionally.

In the end, it’s not the tragedy here that will lay waste to your handkerchief — it’s the unconditional love that shines through the Abbotts’ lives together.

‘Fairyland’ is released nationwide on Oct. 10, 2025.