Unicorn Store is that kind of strange fantastical-realist movie you don’t see much anymore from the Hollywood machine; movies that are heavily about real world struggles and slices of life, with a light dosing of fantasy. You get the occasional Beasts of the Southern Wild from the indie scene, and technically Unicorn Store is an indie as well (one that actually premiered at TIFF in 2017 and didn’t find a distributor until recently at Netflix), but it has a pretty average budget to it and a handful of notable stars –as well as a coordinated release to coincide with another bigger movie its two leads are also headlining that ensures it has a larger audience than it might have otherwise. So there’s something immediately refreshing about this film so wholeheartedly embracing an honest by way of whimsical tone and a grounded realism still open to flights of fancy. Sometimes, this is enough to sustain the movie, other times it’s more reliant on the effectiveness of the character study at the heart of it all.
Kit (Brie Larson), an expressive artist in her late twenties is returning home to live with her parents (Bradley Whitford and Joan Cusack) after her once-promising career has failed to take off. She’s forced to take a temp job at an office with no viable outlet for her creativity, and just as she seems destined for the miserable mediocrity such a situation affords, she meets a mysteriously eccentric salesman (Samuel L. Jackson) who offers her the chance at her childhood dream of having a pet unicorn –but she must fulfil a series of specific obligations before she can qualify for ownership.
This movie was Brie Larsons’ directing debut, and if she doesn’t instantly impress as other young actors-turned-directors like Paul Dano and Bo Burnham have, she certainly shows promise. She’s modest in technique but cognizant to the needs of the narrative in any given scene. She does a fairly good job hinting at the magical component of the Salesman character and the whole notion of receiving a unicorn without explicitly confirming it. On the whole she handles the structure of the story rather well, but it’s her performance where greater emphasis seems to be placed. Larson had initially auditioned for Kit but was turned down, only to be hired back on to the still in-development project years later as director and star following her Oscar win. She approaches the role with a humour, pathos, and spirit that is authentic to a lot of forlorn millennials who’ve contended with a world designed against them. Her whimsical attitude and arrested development refreshingly don’t come off as character quirks, but rather an aspect of her personality heightened by her circumstances. You feel her sense of loss and her desperation for a new purpose in life. When such a thing happens, it’s natural to reach out to childhood comforts.
Unicorn Store is a film all about finding your way after your dreams have been shattered, which is a theme expectedly not much addressed in a medium that frequently prefers to glorify rags-to-riches narratives. But far more people have been where Kit is than have succeeded in their ambitions, especially artists. There’s obviously a degree of pessimism in this, however the film is not so mean-spirited as to wallow in the depression of not achieving ones’ goals. And Kit’s journey in rebuilding her life without losing her passion is ultimately fulfilling …sort of. The script isn’t consistently clear on Kit’s growth and at times loses sight of what its’ message is regarding her childlike wonder. It both endorses her imaginative, if somewhat irresponsible and naive view of the world (it’s pointed out to her that the Salesman seems likely a scammer), but also stresses the importance of growing up and living ones’ life in the real world. In the end (in a really wonderful scene), it compromises on a happy medium of retaining some childhood wonder while moving forward in responsible adulthood, but it’s a rocky road. Screenwriter Samantha McIntyre knows what she wants to get across, she just doesn’t convey it as cleanly as she could -the dialogue could also use a polish.
Comic fans may well find Unicorn Store reminiscent of Dana Simpsons’ cute and charming comic strip Phoebe and Her Unicorn -which actually makes a cameo appearance in the film. Obviously the love of the titular mythical equine is on display in both, but they also share a particular spirit of imagination and an interest in bridging the agglomerate of romantic folklore with the idiosyncrasies of the modern world. There’s a thread on traditional cultural symbols of girlhood running through the movie and comic as well (though perhaps more pronounced in the former) that I haven’t the experience or confidence to interpret with any relevancy, but surely speaks to the significance those tokens have on some girls’ adolescence and maturity. This movie is quite literally not made for me, and though I enjoyed it fine, I think it’s a step in the right direction for Larson (and I would love to see Jackson in a few more performances like this), I can see its greater potential with audiences of a different gender or gender identity at a similar crossroads as Kit.
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