Death of a Unicorn Review

Death of a Unicorn opens successful theaters Friday, March 28. This reappraisal is based connected a screening astatine the 2025 SXSW Film and TV Festival.

There’s an intriguing premise with the imaginable for entertaining motivation conundrums astatine the halfway of Death of a Unicorn. First, firm lawyer Elliot Kintner (Paul Rudd) hits a mysterious creature. Then, erstwhile it turns retired the animal’s corpse has healing powers, Elliot and his conscientious teenage girl Ridley (Jenna Ortega) indispensable fig retired however to fell the mishap from Elliot’s affluent pharmaceutical boss. Unfortunately, this synopsis is astir arsenic far, arsenic deep, and arsenic elaborate arsenic it gets for the latest fearfulness drama from indie powerhouse A24. Despite featuring a fig of amusive performances – particularly that of Will Poulter arsenic the pharma CEO’s wily failson – Alex Scharfman’s diagnostic debut rapidly plateaus.

Death of a Unicorn’s affectional throughlines each look to extremity wherever they begin. In the opening scenes, Elliot and Ridley onshore successful the Canadian mountains by plane; arsenic the assemblage teen falls dormant connected her father’s shoulder, lone for him to shimmy retired of the mode to drawback fallen ineligible documents, causing her to deed her caput connected the armrest. It’s a wonderful, hilarious encapsulation of their estranged dynamic. Ridley’s parent has passed away; successful response, Elliot threw himself into his work, irrevocably changing his narration with Ridley. Now, with his ailing brag Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant) looking for a proxy earlier helium dies, Elliot has the accidental to acceptable Ridley up for life, but connected the information that helium beryllium himself a household antheral arsenic well.

En way to the executive’s isolated mansion, the father-daughter duo, distracted by their bickering, mows down a achromatic equine with a azygous horn – a carnal the characters collectively, and reluctantly, determine to notation to arsenic a unicorn. This leads to strange, fantastical happenings – including hypnotic visions and magical healing – but not earlier immoderate delightful, human-on-apparent-unicorn unit intended to enactment the injured carnal retired of its misery. Its agleam purple humor splatters everywhere, but the imperfectly realized CGI beast (forgivable, considering the ruckus it causes) isn’t rather dead, which further complicates Elliot’s already knotty interrogation with Odell.

This setup has each the makings of a communicative that evolves successful delightful ways, but Death of a Unicorn ne'er progresses past the (initially amusing) philosophical debates kicked disconnected by the Leopolds’ find of their guests’ fairytale roadkill. It’s a conversation-heavy movie until its creature-feature last act, but nary of that jabbering changes the minds of anyone connected surface – slightest of each Ridley, the film’s ostensible conscience. Ortega delivers a wonderfully lived-in show arsenic a baggily-dressed younker withdrawn from the world, defined wholly by her activistic leaning. She’s an histrion susceptible of injecting large thought and subtext into immoderate scenario, but Death of a Unicorn is excessively flimsy adjacent for her talents, rendering Ridley thing of a blank slate who ends up truthful unwavering arsenic to beryllium grating. (It's a atrocious motion erstwhile the dependable of crushed and compassion successful an attempted cinematic takedown of ruthless billionaires makes you see siding with the billionaires.) Then again, what other is determination to bash than see alternatives that the movie and its characters bash not, since each its drama, comedy, and thrills swiftly flatline.

Bearing the brunt of Ortega’s ire, the typically entertaining Rudd delivers an exceptionally plain, checked-out performance. And that’s a shame, considering the colour the remainder of the formed manages to bring to the screen: Grant is delightfully animated, arsenic is Téa Leoni arsenic Odell’s opportunistic wife. Jessica Hynes and Anthony Carrigan, meanwhile, adhd lively dimensions arsenic the family’s stone-faced enforcer and fed-up butler. But it’s Poulter who comes closest to rescuing the movie from its malaise. Nearly each enactment helium delivers is hilarious, owing to however deftly and energetically helium balances his character’s slimy scheming with the insecurities of idiosyncratic who’s ne'er made it connected his own. He’s besides the lone histrion whose show seems to germinate oregon alteration successful immoderate way, adjacent if this is courtesy the drug-like properties of a magical substance.

There’s immoderate magnitude of imaginativeness astatine play, and A24 is hardly successful the incorrect for throwing its value down a first-time filmmaker. The unicorn’s designs are imaginative, arsenic are its magical abilities – adjacent if their find is rendered useless by characters making erratic choices, and losing their cardinal motivations erstwhile convenient. Its fearfulness elements thin to beryllium inconsistent, particularly successful tone. While immoderate sequences are meant to wage homage to Jurassic Park, the result tends to align with that film’s lesser reboot, Jurassic World: Cartoonish villains and complex, relatable characters alike endure vicious deaths designed for our enjoyment and applause. As a result, immoderate of the intended revelry feels icky.

Scharfman intelligibly has a knack for staging and blocking carnal comedy, adjacent if the mode helium really captures it is lacking here. The oculus is seldom drawn to what’s funniest, but rather, to what happens to beryllium successful the halfway of the frame. There’s besides the ingenious conceit of the creature’s beingness messing with electricity, which allows the movie to seamlessly power into haunted location mode erstwhile necessary. However, the hostility and wit of these sequences don’t adequately emergence and fall, and the editing is squeamish astir what small cartoonish gore it features. This renders Death of a Unicorn a passive and yet tiring experience, 1 that gestures often towards amusive and absorbing ideas, but seldom follows done connected them.