Based on Alysia Abbott’s 2013 memoir of her father, Fairyland, written, directed, and produced by Andrew Durham, unfolds from the perspective of little Alysia and the amusing world she was introduced to by her father, Steve Abbott. Based on real people and lived experiences, Fairyland is an honest attempt at capturing the struggle and the resilience of the queer community in the face of the AIDS epidemic.
After the death of his wife in a car accident, Steve decided to leave behind the life he’d built in the Midwest and settle in San Francisco, California. Alysia was too young to fully comprehend what was going on. She overheard her father mention her mother being in a car accident; later, during the funeral, she once again overheard a few guests describe the incident in detail. Although her father had tried to explain what had happened, Alysia secretly hoped that her mother would return.
Spoiler Alert
What is the film about?
Steve was a struggling poet/writer when he arrived in San Francisco with his daughter, and his only option was to live in a shared space. Alysia thought the arrangement was strange, but she was relieved to have her own room. She soon became friends with the other tenants, though her desire to be cuddled by her mother didn’t fade away. It wasn’t the life she was used to—waking up at odd hours, having whatever she could get her hands on for breakfast, loud parties and playing dress-up—and while she was confused at first, she gradually started to appreciate her new life. It was her fairyland, where one could do and be anything they wished without any judgment. She could get makeup done and wear sparkling dresses for birthdays and never worry about being criticized for doing anything out of the ordinary. Alysia gradually got used to watching her father fall in love with men, and she often wondered why he only had boyfriends and no girlfriends. Steve had mentioned that her mother was the only woman he ever fell in love with. Alysia watched her father get his heart broken, and as she got older, she realized that her father was just a young man figuring out life.
There were days when Alysia wondered why her life had to be different than the rest of her peers, and that feeling only got worse as she grew older. She was ashamed to tell her friends that her father was a gay man who was deeply invested in the queer movement. Alysia was afraid of being judged, and she desperately wanted to conform to heteronormativity. This impacted her relationship with Steve. She remembered how her father chose to attend a workshop over picking her up from school when she was very young. She was lost, and she could’ve ended up being trafficked if the kind lady she’d crossed paths with didn’t help her out. Steve always emphasized raising her as an independent woman, but there were times when Alysia wished her father would’ve been more present in her life. While her peers always had their hair neatly tied in plaits and wore clean ironed uniforms, she went to school with messy hair, crumpled clothes, and a dry sandwich for lunch. So as a teenager, Alysia felt the desperate need to rebel against her father. She was offended when he recited a poem about her mother during his book launch. The poem was about her lover and the unfortunate accident she succumbed to but her partner survived. Alysia was devastated to discover that her parents were not in a monogamous relationship, and it made her question her childhood in a way. Steve reasoned that he thought Alysia was too young to understand the complexity of their relationship, and that was why he chose to keep her mother’s affair a secret. He also made it very clear that he didn’t discover his sexuality after the passing of his wife; he’d always been queer. He and his wife used to be best friends, and they thought they could make their marriage work, but they eventually accepted defeat, but they never held any grudges against each other. The truth helped Alysia understand the dynamics between her parents, and she also realized that it was unfair of her to be so tough on her father. Yes, he wasn’t perfect or ideal, but ‘he tried his best.’
Why was Alysia hesitant about returning home?
Steve was proud of his daughter when she enrolled at NYU, and it was a bittersweet feeling when she announced that she intended on spending a year in France for her studies. Her father always dreamt of her becoming a successful writer settled in France, but knowing that she was moving further away from him was a difficult emotion for him to process. He supported her decision, but deep down he’d hoped she would someday move back to San Francisco. Steve had been going through a challenging time watching most of his friends and acquaintances wither and die as a result of the AIDS epidemic. The government’s delayed response, lack of funds to find a cure, and the overall ostracization of the queer community left Steve feeling a profound sense of frustration. He did his part—wrote about his people, spent time reading to the patients at a local hospice, and tried his best to not lose hope.
Steve and Alysia wrote extensively to each other after she left for France. He was almost living through her, and her letters became his source of respite. Alysia fell in love with Paris—she enjoyed the laid-back rhythm of the city and experienced the joy of discovering places she’d only read about, and of course, falling in love with Theo, a French man, made her want to stay back. She had almost made up her mind to stay and finish school in Paris, but that was before she received a letter from her father begging her to return home. Steve had been diagnosed with AIDS, and Alysia was the only person he could rely on to assist him. Leaving behind the life she’d built to look after her ailing father wasn’t an attractive proposal, and perhaps she even felt guilty for not wanting to take on that responsibility. But then again, she didn’t really have a choice. Steve needed her, and when she hesitated, he reminded her that he too had wanted to distance himself from his responsibilities when his wife passed, but he didn’t do so and instead raised his daughter on his own. He knew he could’ve done a better job, but he hoped, now that he needed Alysia, she would not disappoint him.
Alysia made the tough decision of returning to San Francisco. From doing laundry to cleaning and just assisting her father, she started to feel overwhelmed. She sensed that her father’s health was deteriorating, and it wasn’t fair to be mad at him, but at the same time, her heart ached when she received mail from Theo. Steve reminded her as well as himself that the anger they were experiencing should be directed at the fact that a cure hadn’t yet been discovered. He understood her frustration, but he was helpless.
What brought Alysia and Steve close?
Steve had been approved to try an experimental drug that could potentially cure the disease, though the side effects were extreme. Alysia wondered if her father should even consider taking the medication, but the pharmacist (who turned out to be Paulette, one of her father’s roommates) mentioned that everyone was fighting for their lives, and they had to take chances for the sake of survival. The news of more and more people she knew losing their lives to the disease gradually started to get to her. She came to realize that she only had a handful of days with her father unless something radical happened. So, she decided to spend one morning with Steve at the Folsom Baths to take in the fresh air and just stare at passersby.
Steve shared an interesting anecdote about why they’d decided to name their daughter Alysia—when he saw her in the ward, he imagined that someday she would become like the unafraid and resilient Angela Davis of the Black Panther Party, or like novelist Gertrude Stein, or maybe like American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, but a long name wasn’t desirable, so they settled for Alysia Rebecca, a name they found in the name book at the hospital that translated to ‘captivating peacemaker,’ and they thought it was just perfect. Steve admitted that he didn’t know how to function as a single parent since there weren’t many examples to follow, but all he knew was that he didn’t want her to grow up like he did, restricted and punished; he wanted her to be free and independent. Not all his decisions were right, but he believed they were all rooted in what Steve thought was best for Alysia. He raised his daughter to be strong, tolerant, and unafraid of the cruel world, and as long as she would live by those values, he would know that he’d done a decent job as a father.
What did the photograph symbolize?
During Fairyland’s ending, Steve’s health deteriorated drastically; he had to be moved to the hospice and he gradually started to lose his memory. He didn’t remember the death of his wife, or that his daughter had studied at NYU; he remembered random facts, but Alicia was glad that he had a recollection of the one photograph that they’d taken during her childhood. He stated that the monument behind them was known as the ‘portals of the past’; it was an architectural remains that was transported to the park after a devastating earthquake. It symbolized lost times and San Francisco’s resilience to move on from a tragedy. The photograph of Steve standing before the ‘Portals of the Past’ symbolizes his unwavering strength and resilience in speaking up for his community and standing by his beliefs until the very end. The deaths of the countless queer individuals who lost their lives to AIDS aren’t a blip in the past that the world forgot about; they are a constant reminder of a time when the world turned their backs on the community, but they didn’t accept defeat; rather, they stood by each other during the crisis, and even to this day, the dark chapter in recent history is a reminder of the courage and strength that the community demonstrated.
Living with her father during his final days helped Alysia come to terms with the person he was—a father, a poet, an activist, and a hopeless romantic. He was flawed, yet he was the reason she saw a world through a different lens. He taught her to be bold and unafraid, and the older she grew, the more she appreciated his unconventional upbringing. The fairyland she grew up in, where one could be whoever they wished to without any judgment, had shaped her as a human being. She realized she didn’t have to live in France to be inspired; as someone who had been a part of the community, she had to tell the story of her people in the most authentic way; that was what her father would’ve always wanted.
