Unicorn Store (2019)
Rated TV-PG
Score: 3 out of 5
For an actor's directorial debut, Unicorn Store is a lot better than it should've been. It is at once a celebration and deconstruction of childhood whimsy, refusing to make excuses for its overgrown womanchild protagonist in a manner that will honestly hit close to home for any twentysomethings who feel that their lives aren't going anywhere, but at the same time demonstrating why that attachment to the fantasies one had as a little kid can be so seductive. Brie Larson makes a few amateur mistakes behind the camera but succeeds in front of it in crafting a protagonist who, even with her many self-evident personal faults, I couldn't help but root for as she grew into a better, more responsible person. This is a film that could've become insufferably twee, and veers close to it at times, but ultimately pulls itself to the finish through its honesty about itself and its heroine. It's a lightweight charmer that won't stick around, but will still leave you feeling satisfied.
Our heroine Kit is a woman in her twenties who has moved back in with her parents after failing out of art school, and shows no signs of actually doing much with her life. Psychologically, her head is still in the eighth grade as she comes home from her temp job at an office cubicle farm to lounge on the couch and watch cartoons. One day, however, she gets a strange letter inviting her to a place called The Store, and once there, she meets a mysterious salesman promising to fulfill her childhood fantasy of owning a real, live unicorn. The catch: she must first prove that she can care for it, by building it a stable, buying it hay to eat, giving it a loving environment, and supporting herself financially so she can afford to keep it. In other words, if she wants that unicorn that she's dreamed of owning since she was a little girl, she needs to stop being a little girl.
While, on the surface, the aesthetic of the film is a Lisa Frank collage come to life, there's a bit more going on with it than that. Kit is a young woman whose situation is clearly detailed to us in the first ten minutes: she really needs to grow up. She spends most of her time indulging in and clinging to the pastimes of her youth, in her case Saturday morning cartoons watched on the couch in one's pajamas; a male version of this character would likely be playing a ton of video games, and twenty years ago, he likely would've been played by Adam Sandler. She's a character that I imagine a lot of people her age will recoil and cringe at, not in the least because she will remind them all too much of their own failures in life, here blown up to poster size and played, at least initially, for dark humor. Her parents are getting fed up with her inability to be an adult, and it's clear that, had the salesman not entered her life, she would've remained stuck in that same rut well into her thirties. The film is at its best when it's just letting Larson play around with this character on her slow but steady downward spiral, and I think that a better, more biting film could've been made had they been willing to focus more on this, go darker with the material, and really emphasize what a loser Kit is, like with Seth Rogen's character in Observe and Report.
The main problem the film has, then (oddly, a very similar problem to the one that Observe and Report had), is that it wants to have its cake and eat it too. On one hand, it wants us to wish that Kit would stop acting like a child and start putting her life together. The role the salesman plays here is genius: he tempts Kit with the most stereotypical little-girl fantasy one could imagine, owning a unicorn, but in order to get it, she has to get past the parts of herself that are the most directly tied to her wanting that unicorn in the first place. Samuel L. Jackson puts a very creative twist on his usual persona, playing a lighthearted Willy Wonka-esque figure who has a great rapport with Larson; just like in Captain Marvel, the best parts of the film come whenever Larson and Jackson share the screen. And it's thanks in no small part to the two of them that the central journey that Kit goes through works as well as it does. On the other hand, the film also seems a bit too enamored with Kit's quirkiness for its own good. The film makes clear that she's a trainwreck, but at the same time, her antics at her temp job or with her parents are too often played for jolly good laughs rather than cringe humor. This is where the darker tone I suggested could've come in handy, showing Kit's childishness as genuinely hurting the people around her -- culminating in her learning to fuse her whimsical interests with a newfound maturity that combines the best of both worlds. There was a scene in this film where it felt like they were trying to do that, but all it did was make Kit look like a dumbass. As a result, Kit often felt like a "manic pixie dream girl" out of a 2000s romantic comedy given her own movie, but not the added depth that comes with being the protagonist. Again, it's mainly because Larson is a good actor that I bought into the character for a full 92 minutes, not necessarily because of the writing.
It's fortunate, then, that this is a very breezy film to watch. The film may have problems with its story and pacing, but Larson's direction manages to be a bit more than just workmanlike. It's at its best when it's in the fantastical titular store, successfully juxtaposing it with the plain-Jane real world outside and making you understand why Kit so desperately wants to retreat into her childhood. The touches are often subtle, especially in one key scene in particular, but they do a great job of selling the magic realism that flows through the film's world. A lot of the humor is of a sort you've likely seen before in any number of indie comedies, but it's told well here, and I often laughed, especially when the film set out to make me cringe at some of Kit's antics. This movie was never boring, and while I do wish that it cut deeper, it was still pleasantly amusing for much of its runtime. It's here where the film's lightness is a strength; this is rated TV-PG, and even though there are no child characters, I can see a lot of young children enjoying this as a "grown-up" movie that doesn't talk down to them but still makes them laugh.
The main problem the film has, then (oddly, a very similar problem to the one that Observe and Report had), is that it wants to have its cake and eat it too. On one hand, it wants us to wish that Kit would stop acting like a child and start putting her life together. The role the salesman plays here is genius: he tempts Kit with the most stereotypical little-girl fantasy one could imagine, owning a unicorn, but in order to get it, she has to get past the parts of herself that are the most directly tied to her wanting that unicorn in the first place. Samuel L. Jackson puts a very creative twist on his usual persona, playing a lighthearted Willy Wonka-esque figure who has a great rapport with Larson; just like in Captain Marvel, the best parts of the film come whenever Larson and Jackson share the screen. And it's thanks in no small part to the two of them that the central journey that Kit goes through works as well as it does. On the other hand, the film also seems a bit too enamored with Kit's quirkiness for its own good. The film makes clear that she's a trainwreck, but at the same time, her antics at her temp job or with her parents are too often played for jolly good laughs rather than cringe humor. This is where the darker tone I suggested could've come in handy, showing Kit's childishness as genuinely hurting the people around her -- culminating in her learning to fuse her whimsical interests with a newfound maturity that combines the best of both worlds. There was a scene in this film where it felt like they were trying to do that, but all it did was make Kit look like a dumbass. As a result, Kit often felt like a "manic pixie dream girl" out of a 2000s romantic comedy given her own movie, but not the added depth that comes with being the protagonist. Again, it's mainly because Larson is a good actor that I bought into the character for a full 92 minutes, not necessarily because of the writing.
It's fortunate, then, that this is a very breezy film to watch. The film may have problems with its story and pacing, but Larson's direction manages to be a bit more than just workmanlike. It's at its best when it's in the fantastical titular store, successfully juxtaposing it with the plain-Jane real world outside and making you understand why Kit so desperately wants to retreat into her childhood. The touches are often subtle, especially in one key scene in particular, but they do a great job of selling the magic realism that flows through the film's world. A lot of the humor is of a sort you've likely seen before in any number of indie comedies, but it's told well here, and I often laughed, especially when the film set out to make me cringe at some of Kit's antics. This movie was never boring, and while I do wish that it cut deeper, it was still pleasantly amusing for much of its runtime. It's here where the film's lightness is a strength; this is rated TV-PG, and even though there are no child characters, I can see a lot of young children enjoying this as a "grown-up" movie that doesn't talk down to them but still makes them laugh.
The Bottom Line
Unicorn Store may be fairly shallow and not quite as smart as it thinks it is, but as a fun fantasy comedy, it delivers the goods. Brie Larson is likable in front of the camera and a promising talent behind it, and I fully enjoyed myself watching it. I'd recommend it.
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