Too Old for Fairy Tales

image for Too Old for Fairy Tales

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Not suitable under 8; parental guidance to 10 (mild violence, themes and language)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Too Old for Fairy Tales
  • a review of Too Old for Fairy Tales completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 1 September 2022.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 8 Not suitable due to violence, themes and language.
Children aged 8–10 Parental guidance recommended due to violence, themes and language.
Children over the age of 10 Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Too Old for Fairy Tales
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild violence and themes
Length: 106 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Spoiled and obese gamer, Waldek (Maciej Karas), wants nothing more than to be the best esports gamer in the world. He dreams of winning the coveted Robot Masters Gaming tournament with his best friend, Staszek (Patryk Siemek). His doting mother, Tereska (Karolina Gruszka), does everything she can to give Waldek an easy life: she picks out his clothes, feeds him whatever he wants and even walks him across the street. When she gets sick and has to go into hospital for extensive treatment, she asks her aunt, Mariola (Dorota Kolak), to come and stay with Waldek while she is away. Mariola has some different views about how children should be raised and straight away starts making healthy foods, forcing Waldek to exercise and do chores, and insists that he walk to school on his own. Waldek is very unhappy about this turn of events and just wants his mum to come home. When his team falls apart, Waldek and Staszek advertise for a new member but are reluctant to allow a girl to join them. Through a series of encounters with others, the boys will learn that when it comes to friendship, girls and the elderly, not everything is as it may appear.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Illness; Bullying; Obesity; Cancer treatment; Lying; Excessive gaming; Dealing with difficult relatives.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • A character purposely hits Staszek, causing him to lose the game he is playing.
  • Waldek and Staszek shove and hit each other on a number of occasions over disagreements they have.
  • A man smashes his keyboard in a fit of rage.
  • Waldek imagines himself punching two men in the face (causing both to fall down) and kicking another in the stomach, sending him flying backwards.
  • Waldek stabs his aunt’s inflatable mattress with a fork, causing it to deflate.
  • Waldek sabotages his aunt’s harness by cutting a knot with scissors, causing her to fall to the floor.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Tired of his aunt’s behaviour and demands, during the night Waldek travels to the hospital by bus, trying to find his mum. He eventually tracks her down and pauses outside the door to her room. He watches her through the window as she removes her wig to brush it. He has not been aware that she has lost all her hair and is clearly frightened by the sight of his bald mother, connected to an IV, sitting in a hospital bed. He stands in the shadows, silently crying and takes the bus back home where he refuses to take his mother’s calls, terrified of what she might tell him. The scene is not scary but may be distressing to some children.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further of concern.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Waldek explains how Staszek’s hormones have gone crazy and how he now wants a girlfriend.
  • Waldek’s aunt tells his mother how she looks like a, “sexy corpse”.
  • Staszek tells Waldek to: “Check out that chick!”
  • Staszek ogles girls at the local pool.
  • Staszek tells Waldek that he didn’t think a girl would be interested in someone like him.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Staszek watches as a bikini clad girl slowly climbs into the hot tub with him. He moves closer to her as she looks the other way and then must move aside as her boyfriend comes to sit between them. Staszek watches as the girl and boy share a passionate kiss.
  • Waldek’s grandfather tells him how he and his grandmother used to, “tumble a lot in freshly cut grass”. He then tells Waldek’s mother that the boy is red in the face because they were talking about women.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • Waldek’s grandfather attempts to smoke cigarettes before being told off by everyone.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Damn
  • Dumb
  • Lunatic
  • Pip squeak
  • Loser
  • Moron
  • Nut job
  • Sucks
  • Loser nube
  • Slacker
  • Jerk
  • Nit wit
  • Poo poo.

In a nutshell

Too Old for Fairy Tales is a Polish film (dubbed in English) based on the book by Agnieszka Dabrowska. Though the dubbing sometimes seems a little off, the film features a charming cast and casts a light on some big issues such as entitlement and how scary the concept of loss can be. Due to violence, themes and language, this film is not suitable for children under 8 and parental guidance is recommended to 10.

The main messages from this movie are that kids are often more capable than they are given credit for; that the best way to handle fear is to share it with others as this will lighten your load; and that you must always do something instead of doing nothing.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Determination
  • Teamwork
  • Persistence
  • Tough love
  • Friendship.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Bullying others.
  • Believing that girls can’t play esports as well as boys and refusing to allow them on a team.
  • Lying to those you love, even if you think you are protecting them.
  • Betraying your friends because you want something they may have.