Movie Review: Unicorn Store

Fearlessly Whimsical Unicorn Store Shines

HAPPY NATIONAL UNICORN DAY! Dump those rainbow sprinkles on your bowl of ice cream, bust out the pastel nail polish, rock a ROYGBV look, and when you’re done drooling over all the unicorn foodporn on Insta and Pinterest (the bark! the cupcakes! the vegan frappes!) hoof it over to Netflix to watch Unicorn Store!

Acclaimed actress and Captain Marvel star Brie Larson’s directorial debut hit Netflix on April 5th. The whimsically named indie flick is a rainbow-hued, glitter-dusted dramedy about Kit--a friendless, jobless, purposeless young artist seeking a place in the “real” world. Annnnnd the everlasting, unconditional love of her very own unicorn. Stay with me here. This isn’t some coked up, madcap fantasy misadventure.

Larson’s Unicorn Store is a modern day art house dramedy that’s sweet, and sincere, with a colorful, sometimes candy-coated, authenticity that explores adulthood (ugh), loneliness (bawh), and individuality (hooray!).

Aren’t we all looking for our own unicorns?!

After flunking out of art school Kit (Brie Larson) a Care Bear loving, paint splattered late blooming twenty-something moves back home to her overly enthusiastic parents’ house. Touchy feely counselors who work at Emotion Quest with troubled teens Gladys and Gene (Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford) double-team their disenchanted daughter with well-meaning but over the top praise in a series of scenes that are odd and hilarious, setting the tone for all to come in the strange but charming Unicorn Store.

So when Kit gets a gig temping at a fifty shades of bland advertising office, they’re tickled pink.

Choking down kale and coffee to start the daily grind of #adulting, all Kit does at work is make copies, get stuck making small talk with the company’s thirsty Vice President and epic fail at befriending cliquey coworkers who’d rather give her the stink eye than any time of day.

The miserable monotony is interrupted when a series of magical cards addressed to Kit arrive at the office inviting her to “The Store”-- a place that has what she needs.  

The mysterious shop, with its blazing neon sign leads Kit to The Salesman. Clad in a bubble gum pink suit with sparkly tinsel in his afro Samuel L. Jackson hams it up as The Store’s eccentric Salesman, the proprietor of the fantastical pop-up shop, who gives Kit an offer she can’t refuse. The opportunity to adopt a real live unicorn of her own. But before she can even meet a unicorn, let alone bring the mythical beast of her dreams home she has to complete a series of tasks to prove her worth. Build a stable, gather unicorn food, and better her strained relationship with her parents.

Easy as apple pie!

Ooooor maybe not. (But, still, yum!)

Visually Unicorn Store is eye candy. It’s a sugar rush of color (and bedazzled vacuums) in a bland ordinary world. Unicorn Store, and Kit herself, is a pink frosted sprinkled doughnut among capital B- Basic bagels on a brunch spread. Flouncing around in fringy and sparkly-rainboweriffic Lisa Frank approved outfits raises the eyebrows of muggles and squares around her (there are many of both in Unicorn Store) but as Marie Kondo would say they spark Kit’s joy! And let’s be real, are sure to spark some rad Kit cosplays and Halloween costumes. (I'm in! 🙋🏻‍♀️)

Unicorn Store is a charming and irresistibly bizarre movie. I LOVED it.

As Kit, Brie Larson’s performance captures the messiness of growing up, the sting of failure, and the celebration of being fearlessly different. Larson seamlessly strikes a balance between Kit’s sharp self-awareness —she’s totally stymied by #adulting— and her fanciful, childlike glee in her quest. When Kit’s asked where she’s getting her unicorn from, she doesn’t miss a beat. “The Unicorn store” (duh!).

Seesawing from one to the other Kit befriends Virgil (Mamoudou Athie), a hardware store worker and YouTube taught carpenter who helps Kit refurbish the dilapidated childhood playhouse in her backyard, into an (unbeknownst to him) unicorn paddock; and faces Gary (Hamish Linklater), the shady VP who’s a mumbly, slow-blinking, hair-sniffing creep who has a shameless tendency to toe the line of sexual harassment (and lament his umm crushed figure skating dreams) . Linklater’s mumbly dryness and weird as hell dialogue is so hilarious because of his low-key delivery. The camp from Samuel L. Jackson and Kit’s quirkiness is able to shine because of the understated performances from the supporting cast.

Kit’s true blue friendship with Virgil and the zippy, amusing rapport Larson has with an against-type Jackson (who’s screen partnered with Larson in two other movies Kong: Skull Island and Captain Marvel) is everything. The natural chemistry between the two is spectacular in and of itself.    

The optimism and big-heartedness of Unicorn Store are impossible to ignore (which, uh, why anyone would want to is beyond me) and so uplifting. Kit becomes a walking example of her “self-portrait”, the exuberant glittery, explosion of rainbow paint smeared and splattered onto a canvas she created in the beginning of the film. But instead of being drop kicked by pretentious art professors and forced to trample that part of herself down, she embraces it and she radiates. With her creative soul and the childlike wonder that fuels her art reignited Kit is a whirling dervish of radiant confidence, encouraging all of us to let ourselves be all of who we are.

With its fearlessly whimsical, weird, and truthful narrative and achingly real main character Unicorn Store is real movie magic.   

All images from IMDB