best movie i've ever seen.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Sometimes in life we need to believe in something beyond ourselves. Something that plays with our imagination and allows us venture into worlds that go beyond what we can reach out and touch easily. The line in the movie regarding what it's like to be grown up 'that it feels like being someone that isn't 'you'' is pretty accurate. This movie made me feel I'd reconnected with that 'anything is possible' aspect of myself, which is pretty magickal!! I Believe... what you believe is up to you.

Like others writing here, I felt a bit cheated that the movie did not focus on the real "true story", which is certainly a better one for an adult audience. Perhaps it would not have had such a general appeal, and would have been less commercial. The notion that it was all a hoax, and yet true at the same time, seemed disingenuous. The story of how grief and loss in the years after the First World War led many to become self-deluded and consequently vulnerable to "psychic" charlatans is a very adult one. Houdini was a hero in the cause of stamping this shoddy business out. He was a champion of reason. I have no problems with films that alter and compress historical events for dramatic reasons, but this film actually negated the essence of the true story and wasted an opportunity. And we were deprived of the delicious final twist, when the surviving girl (by then an old lady) confessed all in the 1980s. The film was an enjoyable fantasy, and could have been presented as being "inspired by, but not based on" actual events (as were Citizen Kane and Personal Services). There is always going to be a problem with films based on true events, and in this case it seemed like a good story trashed.

Another reviewer here on the user-comments asks, "Is there anyone left in this world who objects to being lied to?Yeah, I do! The main drawback, however, even more than the absurdity of the story, is that it is simply boring. "Fairy Tale: A Boring Story" would have been truthful, not labeling it a "true story." To repeat: the headline on this film is an out-and-out LIE.This is a supposed "true story" about two little girls in England who see and communicate with fairies - little Peter Pan-type beings who flutter around. Give me a break!!!!The only redeeming value of all this nonsense and New Age propaganda is some pretty photography. That's all the film offers, unless you are total moron and still believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, too. If this was billed as a fantasy, I would have enjoyed it, but to tell me this is truth is ludicrous.

The story is true about the girls and the photos. The story is true about the photos and how they tricked people. But the fairies flying around and bathing with fins and dodging cigarettes while carrying suitcases is not true. The ghost of a child blocking a doubting reporter from framing these girls after breaking into their room is also not true. This movie should not have "A True Story" at the end. It would be like "Titanic: A True Story", simply because the ship sinking is true. This is a good movie at times, has a lot of charm and the magic shines through. Harvey Keitel seems more like a downtown New York thug than a famous magician. The two leads who play the girls are charming, sweet, and talented. But my problem goes back to the "truth"; if they are going to show fairies they should have only showed them when the girls were present, so then it would be assumed that they might be only in the girl's imagination... or not. Showing the fairies flying around without the girls turns this "true story" into a "fairy tale", as in... it ruins the entire mystique that the pictures raised in the first place. The movie should center more on the hoax, on how the girls did what they did to trick scholars, famous writers and basically an entire continent. That would be interesting. Instead we get a fairy tale within a fairy tale with a false premise of the entire thing being true, that is, a movie that is telling us that fairies actually exist by tagging this "a true story". It's not true, it's merely based on truth. Just like "The Titanic", which didn't have "A True Story" added to the title; this movie should only be called "FairyTale", or better yet, "The Cottingley Hoax", or something based on actual history, not manipulation.