Unicorn Store (2019) - Movie Review

Hope you’re in the mood for some whimsy because we got it by the bucketful with this one. In fact, after watching this, I feel like I’m about to pass glitter like a bloody kidney stone. Given my more recent TV-watching habits (I’ve been getting through My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic over the last few months), I feel like I’ve steeled myself as best I can for something like this, and it definitely helps that it involves film creatives that I quite like already, but this… this is tough to get through, and what makes things weirder is that the film might have a really, really good point behind it. Like, the kind of point that warms itself to my Peter Pan Syndrome-stricken heart.

It’s the story of struggling artist Kit, played by Brie Larson who also serves as producer and director on this feature, who along with trying to make it as an artist is also trying to make it in the 9-to-5 working world, under the mentorship of sentient block of wood Hamish Linklater. Seriously, even for a character that is meant to be emotionally deadened, his performance isn’t ideal. After an anonymous invitation to The Store, run by Samuel L. Jackson (this was made back in 2017, so it basically serves as proof-of-concept that their pairing in Captain Marvel was a good idea), Kit is offered something that she has wanted all her life: A living, breathing unicorn for her very own.

Between the bright, glitter-infused colour palette that Larson and DOP Brett Pawlak provide throughout, the wind-up music-box instrumentation from Alex Greenwald, and the general coming-of-age tones of Samantha McIntyre’s scripting, I can easily see a lot of audiences tapping out quickly to avoid the syrupy levels of whimsy on offer here. It ends up being a suitable aesthetic for a story all about the tribulations of growing into an adult and the numerous responsibilities entailed vs. holding on to one’s childhood dreams, but it can get a little overwrought at times. This isn’t helped by Kit’s parental figures, played by Bradley Whitford and Joan “I miss the good ol’ days' Cusack, who only add to the incessant and somewhat patronising tone of the material.

And yet, there’s something strangely commendable to be said about the story as is, if not so much the presentation. As we see Kit preparing for the unicorn she’s been promised, it turns out that this stereotypical dream of girls all over the world is actually a lot of hard work. From preparing an appropriate stable for the unicorn, to feeding it, to making sure it’s in a loving and caring household (which, by Kit’s own admission, isn’t the case with her), it treats its own fantastical premise with plenty of grown-up logic.

Where that ends up warming itself to me is the idea that you can treat something as childishly idealistic as "I’m going to own a unicorn!" as if it were a real-world possibility that doesn’t involve an opened paddock door, part of a Halloween costume and some industrial-strength glue. As someone who has also devoted a good chunk of their life to what a lot of people would consider a naive venture (getting paid to write about movies all day), I like the approach to fulfilling one’s childhood dreams as an adult. It ends up turning into a large-form chance for closure, which coasts mainly on Larson’s past and future experience with screwy domestic situations in Room and The Glass Castle, but it shows a certain potential for her as a filmmaker.

But even with that said, this still isn’t all that great. It’s a little too cheesy, the jokes don’t land as well as they should, and the tone never manages to find a healthy rhythm for what is being presented. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t show this film the respect it deserves deserves, as something this whole-heartedly idealistic and utterly lacking in reinforced cynicism made this potentially-disastrous ride a lot calmer than it could’ve been in lesser hands.